We’re always hearing we could have a better sex life. But, how often do we actually go ‘under the covers’ to better understand our desires and most embarrassing questions?  How do you decide who you’re going to trust with some of your most intimate experiences? Most people do their best to try to fix issues in a relationship when it’s not going well. But sometimes, seeking professional help in this area, can be fraught with risk as some therapists aren’t able to deal with these intimate issues effectively.

There needs to be two separate, parallel conversations, when couples come to sex therapy. One, about the emotional health within the relationship, and the other, about sexual health. Many people think that if the relationship gets better, then the sex will too, or vice versa. Both are a myth. 

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It is important to encourage couples to speak openly about their erotic needs, something that seldom happens outside of the therapist’s office. When these are brought out into the open, discrepancies between each other’s inner erotic worlds can be discovered. Exploring uncomfortable desires more deeply can open a door to greater understanding of themselves, increased empathy for their partners, and potentially lead to healing their sex lives and their relationship. But how do you chose the right therapist?

A good sex therapist can help you build confidence in your sexual skills and develop new techniques, but also help you recognize that sex is about so much more than “performance.” Sex therapy can help you learn tips for managing anxiety in the moment and staying mentally present during sex, which are just as important as sexual technique.

Shop around and consider an AASECT (The American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists)certified sex therapist. They will have received extra education in areas of sexual dysfunction, sex and genderidentity concerns, trauma, and partner intimacy issues. Compared to general therapists, they will have more experience with diagnosing male and female sexual dysfunctions.

The therapist doesn’t haveto have fully advanced training to help you, but they should have more than their normal training – participated in a workshop that focused on working with couples and expanded their sexual health knowledge.

As a trained sex therapist myself, I educate other therapists around the country and internationally. I often ask how many of those have any kind of sex therapy training. In a roomful of 50 or 60 therapists, I usually get no more than four hands! If I give a talk on problematic sexual behaviors, marital therapy, or sexual trauma and abuse, I fill a room. But, a talk on helping individuals and couples with sexual pleasure, has less than half as many people show up.

Too often, the untrained therapist makes unsound judgments about what constitutes a healthy sex life—perhaps based their own unexamined sexual history of abuse or trauma or infidelity—project this onto the clients and then lead the individual or couple, accordingly, often taking sides with the person who feels aggrieved in the relationship. This is not helpful.

A good sex therapist can help you build confidence in your sexual skills and develop new techniques, but also help you recognize that sex is about so much more than “performance.” Sex therapy can help you manage anxiety in the moment and stay mentally present and erotically focused during sex, which are just as important as sexual technique.

To set the record straight, sexual health therapy is “talk therapy,” not having sex in the office, and deals with such things as:

* helping couples with discrepancies in their erotic needs 

* problems related to painful intercourse or erectile disorders

* sexual difficulties following cancer treatment or childbirth

* breaking of relationship contracts and infidelity 

* problems underlying the cessation of sex in a relationship

* religion -based shame around sexuality

* failure to have an orgasm 

* helping parents guide their children or teenagers about sex

A great sex therapist will encourage couples to speak openly about their erotic desires and fantasies, something that seldom happens outside of the therapist’s office unless their sexual behaviors and fantasies are interfering with their lives. I recently had a couple who’d opened up their relationship – both having boyfriends and girlfriends outside their marriage. But this wasn’t why they were here. Most therapists would see their problems becausethey opened up their relationship. But, they understood, as did I, that opening their relationship was merely highlighting their already existing relationship problems, not adding to them. Therapists shouldn’t make assumptions. Sure, their open marriage is a potential problem, but not an intimacy disorder in itself. Sex therapists need to make more room for sex and intimacy in many different ways. Many couples have a secure base for their love for one another and can have multiple intimate attachments outside that. Look at families – millions of parents worry they won’t love their second baby as much as their first.  But they do. And, the world over there’s the capacity for second, third and fourth love attachments with our children. It can be the same for our intimate partners. But, obviously, problems arise if the couple hasn’t had an open dialogue negotiating their monogamy. And, that’s where a good sex therapist can come in and help. 

But, before you book the appointment, here are some questions you may want to ask a potential sex therapist:

•  What do you consider “normal” sexually? You don’t want a therapist who has their very rigid and fixed idea of how often and how a couple should be having sex.
• What areas do you focus on in your practice? If they say ‘everyone” take heed, they may not be for you. Good sex therapists and couples counselors usually just focus on that, and maybe a couple of other areas. 
• What is your accreditation? The largest accrediting body for sex therapy is AASECT. This is not to suggest that there are not excellent therapists without AASECT accreditation, but a lot of therapists are uncomfortable talking to their clients about sexual confessions. So, a therapist with AASECT accreditation can’t hurt.
• What are some of your approaches to sex therapy? If your therapist says, “I only use one method,” be wary. Sex therapy is not a ‘one size fits all’ approach. 
• Ask the therapist – Are you trained in what I’m calling you for? i.e. kink fetishes, BSDM and, have you had sexual health education training?

It’s also important to know what the sex therapist should NOTbe doing. Here are some red flags to look out for…

• Sex therapy should neverinclude nudity, sex, or any type of sexual touching in the presence of a therapist.
• An ethical therapist will never try to “rid” you of your sexual identity or erotic interests. This is misinformed therapy and offensive.
• The therapist should never judge the client and should never pathologize their sexual behavior. i.e. saying to you, “That’s bad!”
• If a couple comes to therapy and the therapist doesn’t ask about the couple’s sex life, that’s a huge red flag. They shouldbe bringing up your sex life!  It’s a huge part of your relationship.
• If they say that you’re a sex addict, it often means they are not trained well as that is not a diagnosis and more of a cultural terminology and can be a sign that the therapist doesn’t have a sexual health understanding.
• Beware of therapists that identify themselves as ‘sex addiction therapists.’ This is because with most sex addiction therapy training, there’s not a mandatory sexual health component. 
• Sex Offending Therapy should be left to trained therapists who work with and are educated on non-consensual and illegal sexual behaviors. Sex therapists are not necessarily trained in this unless they get this training outside of the sex therapy. 

Finding the right therapist can feel like a bit like dating. Despite their qualifications, therapists are humans, too. You might run into a therapist with their own sexual hang-ups or old-fashioned views, or just someone you don’t gel with. But when you find “the one,” there’s no feeling like it.  

Finally, you want to make sure that you work with someone who shares your values around sexuality. Once you meet with a therapist in person, check in with how they made you feel. Uncomfortable emotions and challenges are part of therapy, but you should feel safe and supported by your therapist. After your first session, ask yourself if you felt a connection with your therapist and whether you would get value out of going back? If the answer to either of those questions is no, move on and look for someone else.

Becky Williams, REALM Leadership

Source: Becky Williams

As part of this blog series focused on new perspectives on women’s leadership, I share real women’s stories about their leadership experiences. Each interview is structured around a similar set of questions to allow for the emergence of some comparisons and commonalities. However, each woman’s perspective, struggles, and lessons learned will be different as I will focus on underserved / underrepresented female leaders, emerging female leader, mid-to-senior level female leaders, and thought leaders and researchers in this field. 

Becky Williams is a chemical engineer by training who transitioned into an executive leader during her 38-year career with LORD Corporation. She also earned an MBA with a marketing focus and held multiple roles including design engineer, marketing director, and President of the Asia Pacific Region. She was the first woman in her company to hold this position and one of the few women in a senior P&L leadership role at the time. She now applies her business and people leadership expertise to support other leaders as an executive coach and consultant through her company, REALM Leadership. I sat down with her to learn what elements she found to be most important for her own leadership trajectory and what advice she would give to support women’s leadership development now. 

The themes that struck me most throughout her story were the importance of (1) thoughtful self-evaluation and awareness; (2) learning new strategic thinking and communication skills and applying them in the appropriate situations; and (3) not allowing herself to fall into believing that being a woman was a handicap to success. She also provides some insight into how she adjusted her personal communication style and successfully navigated a traditionally male-dominated industry as she entered new leadership roles. 

What’s your definition of leadership and how did you get to this? 

As a role in an organization, a leader is the person who takes a big picture view and is concerned about “are we doing the right things and going in the right direction?” Leaders initiate change based on this perspective. By contrast, a manager is more focused on “are we doing things the right way?” As a person, the leader gives others courage and inspiration to go somewhere they wouldn’t have otherwise gone. Great leadership happens at many levels in an organization, not just at the top. It’s never too early to develop your leadership skills. My perspectives come from working across product types, technologies, industries, and cultures.

What factors contributed to your leadership journey? 

The most significant factors were my inclination to think and plan strategically, my drive to get things done, and the advocates who provided growth opportunities. As is often the case, my first leadership roles were associated with my functional expertise. I was good at developing action plans and schedules to complete engineering projects, and was selected to manage groups of technicians and engineers.

For much of my career I was moved (by some great advocates) between line and staff positions every few years. In line positions people report to you and the focus is on day-to-day problems and deadlines (for example managing a sales team). In a staff position, usually no one reports to you and the focus is on making the future better (for example developing a marketing strategy for a new product). Some of these moves felt like a set-back. It can be hard when all of the sudden no one is sending you emails!  In hindsight, it was actually great career development that allowed me to get experience in both critical needs of a company and to develop communication, influencing, and leadership skills.

What setbacks, roadblocks, or barriers did you have to overcome on your leadership journey?

My biggest barrier was within myself. I had to develop self- and social-awareness to be able to interpret what was going around me and respond productively. 

It is funny to think back on how naive I was! I was actually surprised that I was the only female in my first engineering class at college. That was the beginning of adjusting to a very male-dominated work environment, which was another significant barrier.  I was motivated to figure out how to be accepted. In aligning to the culture at work, I demonstrated I was an adaptable problem-solver and willing to compromise. That strength can become a weakness over time, but in the beginning that was really helpful

When I worked on a product design for a new aerospace customer early in my career, there was a salesperson who didn’t want me to represent our company in making the pitch. He didn’t think a female could be credible to the customer’s engineers. But I had a boss/advocate who focused more on capabilities and outcomes than gender. He respected and trusted me and my work and insisted that I deliver the presentation. That sent a huge message – to the sales team and to me. Because of my demonstrated competence and communication during the pitch, we won that project and I continued to work on more product designs with them. 

In line with my low social awareness, I was largely ignorant of the strength of the anxiety around me about having a female in a technical leadership role. I had a belief that “once you understand that I am competent, you will be willing to trust me.” It wasn’t that I was blind to other people’s beliefs that “Women can’t be engineers” or “Women can’t be managers”, I just never internalized it. That helped get me through he early years of my career, but I have seen many females leave technical roles because they didn’t feel accepted. It is still an issue that limits diversity in technical roles today. 

When I got promoted to President of the Asia Pacific Region, and moved to Asia, I was asked “How do you think being female will handicap you?”  I felt exasperated and said, “I don’t know, I’ve been female my whole life and it has been working for me so far!” So there was always an assumption that being female was going to be a handicap in my male-dominated field. 

As the responsibility of my leadership roles grew, I had to change my habit of being highly accommodating.  In my desire to fit in the male-dominated culture, I developed the habit of not sharing my thought process. Rather than explaining how my ideas fit with the big picture or strategy, I would just announce an opinion or decision. In a senior leader, this behavior leads to confusion in the organization. I had to re-build my internal filters so that rather than keeping quiet where I didn’t agree, I could effectively state my objections in a constructive way.    

What was the most challenging transition period for you in your career? Tell me about that. What happened? What were the difficulties?

The most challenging is when I accepted the assignment to be the President of LORD Asia Pacific. I had to move half-way across the globe and manage that whole geographic region, including 450 employees remotely. 

I had to develop a new identity in this new leadership role: Who am I in this job? What does this position need that I can be and bring to it? 

I was already accomplished, but I wanted to excel in this role too. I recognized I needed help and sought coaching. Working with them helped me develop the new thinking and communication habits I needed. 

Living far from headquarters (HQ) also meant I wasn’t surrounded by my peers any more. My leadership style had been very collaborative, with a lot of checking with peers and bosses before making decisions. But now, when I would call HQ to discuss issues, there was less emotional connection or concern about the decisions I was making. I was in charge and expected to make and implement decisions. It was very empowering, but it was an adjustment. 

What advice you would give to women or organizations about leadership?

I have several thoughts. 

The first is about making diversity a company-wide priority.

The initial reason my first boss hired me was because of an expectation from senior management– he didn’t necessarily have a specific affinity to women or supporting diversity initiatives per se but supporting women in technical roles was an HR initiative and expectation. There was a budgetary incentive and political recognition for meeting this performance expectation. So, I’m a fan of quotas from that perspective.

The second, for individuals, is to get to know yourself.

Develop your emotional intelligence (EQ), especially for women who are promoted for a strength they have in a technical expertise. Learn to recognize your emotions, process them, and use them in a productive way to initiate change. Articulate your strengths as the foundation of a leadership style that is authentic and impactful. 

Higher EQ will also enable you to assess barriers more accurately. You need to be able to assess when there is a valid gap in your functional or leadership skillset versus when you are the target of discriminatory thinking. If you over-focus on building your skills, you will waste a lot of energy and potentially undermine your self-confidence. If you are over-sensitized to the potential for discrimination, you risk shutting down constructive feedback. 

If you are in an environment that does, in fact, have some discriminatory practices, you want to be able to assess objectively when it’s toxic (thus could be dangerous to push back) vs. when you need to appropriately advocate for yourself. Sometimes the answer is leaving, sometimes it’s pushing back, sometimes it’s finding ways to make it work. 

Third is to ask for help, by establishing a network of supporters, having a mentor, and having an advocate.

This is especially important in environments that don’t appear to be supportive of women. And this group of advocates and supporters should include both men and women; both inside and outside your organization. 

Is there a book, article, speaker, etc. that you would recommend to women that helps with leadership development? 

That’s what my company REALM is all about! It’s especially focused on helping people who have achieved a functional expertise and have moved into a leadership position. The focus is on defining who they are now as a leader by learning how to lead self, team (context and situational leadership), and change (influence)– each of these has its own set of literature and strategy for development (see reference section for a few examples). I think many leaders see their role as having two jobs: achieve business results and develop people and there is a tension between both. These can be integrated, and I am working to help leaders connect these two – working through people to achieve results and vice versa. 

Source: ,shock/Depositphoto

We live in a digital world. Smartphones, iPads, tablets, computers—it seems as though everyone is plugged in and connected. Nowhere is this more evident than with our children. iGen, the generation born between 1996 and 2012,  is particularly impacted, with nearly half of adolescents reporting being on their smartphones and other devices “constantly”¹, and the average screen time use to be around 5 hours a day⁴. The youngest generation, Generation Alpha, isn’t immune to all of this technology usage. In a recent survey conducted by Hotwire and Wired Consulting, parents indicate that their children’s opinions heavily influence technology decisions in the home, including purchase decisions. Parents also report that technology is more important to their young children than toys, holidays or vacations⁷.

What does all of this mean? While researchers are only just learning of the true impact of screen time on cognitive and emotional processes, the early findings are not great. As little as two hours a day of screen time has been demonstrated to negatively impact the brain, with reductions in grey matter and changes to white matter³. Most researchers acknowledge the dopaminergic impact of screen time—screen time use leads to the release of dopamine similar to the way drugs like cocaine impact the brain. This has led to alarm regarding the long-term impact of increased screen time use (including time on phones, tablets, video games, and TV). These changes in the brain can result in reduced attention, memory difficulties and changes in our ability to think, read, and write at a deep level.

Changes to our brain functioning are not the only area of concern. Twenge and other researchers site profound decreases in happiness, increases in anxiety and depression and increased suicidal ideations and attempts in our youth⁶. Our children are struggling with social-emotional development impacting their resilience overall².

Not all researchers agree with the arguments against technology and screen time. The Hotwire report pointed to some positive research as well. Video game use has been linked to some increases in hand-eye coordination and visual processing skills⁷. Furthermore, research has not been able to indicate causal relationships between screen time use and the adverse social-emotional outcomes, only correlations⁵.

What does this mean for parents? Regardless of whether screen time causes negative changes in the brain and increases in anxiety and depression, it’s clear to me that too much screen time does have negative impacts. This throws parents into a hard position. After all, we live in a digital world. If the experts at Hotwire and Wired Consulting are correct, our tech use is increased over the next twenty years. We must learn to balance our screen time with human interaction to ensure the healthy development of our social-emotional intelligence. More importantly, we need to teach our children balance.

What does balance actually mean? Sound we eliminate as much screen time use as possible, just to be “safe?” While some of you may answer yes, I think that is unrealistic and impractical. A more common sense approach is in order.

Start by establishing household expectations around screen time—when it is appropriate and not appropriate to engage in screen time. The following tips can help you create a screen time plan for your family:

1. Set boundaries around screen time. Typical times to avoid screen use include meal times, bedtimes and while driving or engaging in activities when high levels of sustained attention are needed (homework time, etc.). If a screen is required for homework time or similar activities, teach children to set controls that limit texting and social media access while engaged in high-attention activities.
2. Discuss the research about high screen time use with your children. Teach them how to determine if they engage with their screens too often. Take a balanced approach to the conversation, while still communicating clear expectations.
3. Whenever possible, engage in screen-related activities with your child. Discuss the movie with your children, or ask questions about the game he or she plays.
4. When determining how much screen time to allow, consider the following:
   • What is the media used with the screen time (i.e., streaming a movie on a tablet, playing Minecraft versus Fortnite, listening to a book through audible on a smartphone)?
   • Does the screen time use increase the value of the media?
   • Does the activity require the use of a screen, or is it merely a convenience?
   • Does the screen time use empower my child or enable my child?
   • Is the activity passive (watching a screen) or active (involves in-person social contact with another or uses the technology in different ways, like making a video or taking pictures as opposed to watching a video)?
5. Have explicit discussions around internet safety and cyber-bullying.
6. Agree to take digital breaks as a family. This time “off the grid” may be difficult at first. Start with a day, or even a few hours. Use the time to increase in-person, social connection time as a family.
7. Practice digital restraint and balance yourself. After interviewing hundreds of children for the parenting books that I’ve written, one thing is clear to me—children want us to reduce our screen time and increase connections with them as much as we wish this of them.

Living in this new, digital world can be confusing. Screen time management can feel daunting. But technology in and of itself is not the enemy. It can improve our world. The key is treating it as a tool to enhance our development as humans, not something to which we abdicate control. Take back the reins and develop a balanced approach to screen time with your family. Your children are relying on you.

Many people struggle with insomnia disorder which is defined as difficulty getting to sleep and/or staying asleep with coinciding distress or daytime impact on functioning resulting from sleep disruption. The prevalence rate of insomnia disorder in the United States ranges anywhere between 6-10% and is one of the most common sleep disorders. It surprises me to hear that people are not aware of a very effective non-medication treatment for insomnia called cognitive behavioral treatment for insomnia (CBTi) or if they have heard of CBTi, they think it pertains to sleep hygiene recommendations. In current times the media regularly reports on sleep as it has become a hot topic and many of these articles offer sleep hygiene quips as a quick method to rid oneself of insomnia. Unfortunately resolving insomnia disorder is usually not accomplished with a quick recommendation such as making the room darker or modifying the temperature of the bedroom. Tossing around various recommendations has created the impression that sleep hygiene tips are the same as CBTi. Sleep hygiene recommendations such as “keep your room at a comfortable temperature, darken the room, don’t eat, drink alcohol, or exercise prior to bedtime” have been found to be an ineffective intervention for those weary with insomnia. Not taking heed to these recommendations may affect your quality of sleep but be aware that merely applying the recommendations is rarely the core resolution for chronic insomnia. 

It is also important to distinguish CBTi from other cognitive behavioral treatments recommended for depression, anxiety, pain, and countless other afflictions. CBTi is a systematic treatment that tailors behavioral and cognitive recommendations to help a person improve sleep quality and quantity. CBTi focuses on sleep improvement and works to eliminate factors that are perpetuating the course of the insomnia. It is also important to note that general psychotherapy is not an effective intervention for insomnia. 

CBTi is a short-term treatment that generally lasts 4-6 sessions and uses multiple approaches to improve sleep to include sleep restriction, stimulus control, cognitive therapy, and relaxation techniques. Sleep hygiene factors are assessed as part of the initial intake with a sleep specialist trained in CBTi and overall conceptualization to ensure they are not contributors to the big picture (such as drinking a pot of coffee in the afternoon when one is very sensitive to caffeine). 

Based on strong empirical support, CBTi has been considered first line treatment by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, National Institute of Health Consensus, and American College of Physicians. In 1999 a systematic review of 48 clinical trials found 70-80% of patients that completed CBTi showed improvement in their sleep. CBTi has been found to be effective for individuals taking sleep medication and for those that have a desire to stop taking sleep medication. CBTi can also be effective when there is the presence of a co-occurring condition such as diabetes, depression, and anxiety. 

There is never one treatment that is effective for all but given CBTi’s high success rate it is helpful for people to be aware of this possible treatment option. Providers trained in CBTi can be found at https://my.absm.org/BSMSpecialists.aspxor by searching in your area for a trained behavioral sleep medicine provider. A CBSM credential means the provider is Certified in Behavioral Sleep Medicine (historically this credential was given through the American Board of Sleep Medicine; currently the new credentialing board is the Society for Behavioral Sleep Medicine). 

Perhaps because my life changed so much after returning to Florida from New York City and I was not nearly busy enough to suit me, my mind often was filled with less than positive thoughts. Like these: "I never hear from my grandchildren, beyond a text or a call on my birthday. Nothing in between. No contact unless at a celebration at their mother's home which is not often." I started feeling sorry for myself. "How could they not be in touch...after all I've done for them?" Petty, unattractive and a throwback to my past where I heard those same words. I had been less than attentive to my grandmother who lived to be in her 90s. Now the shoe was tight on my own foot.

In any case, I talked to their mother, my daughter, about it. She was decidedly on my side and had, in fact, repeatedly told her children to call me. Petty again, I even resented that they had to be told to get in touch with me. I had forgotten how youth can be devilishly self preoccupied.

But being in my 82 year I had become increasingly more disgruntled about the fact that we live in a society that abhors the aging population. We Elders are often referred to as  "The Silver Tsunami," likening us to a natural disaster. There are rarely if ever advertisements that show aging men and women positively engaged in life...happy, healthy...and involved. We are often segregated in assisted living communities instead of, as once there were, families living together so that children saw the aging process from their youth to old age and absorbed the wisdom of the Elders in their home. I'm not suggesting that all situations were ideal and sometimes not the best, but awareness of what Elders can contribute has been lost. And with it the respect and sometimes admiration for what they have come through.

I think, most of all, I do not want my grandchildren to be sorry after I pass on, that they hadn't spent enough time with me. That's an awful feeling that cannot be comforted. I know because I was guilty of it.

In any case, I decided to be honest with them as I have always encouraged them to be with me. I sat down and typed out a letter to them...delivered by one of the methods they prefer...email...too long to text, detailing my feelings.

Dear Ones,

     I don't get a lot of time to sit and talk to you these days and so I just want to tell you some things this way. 

     It is very easy to feel irrelevant at my age especially when family is not in touch. I know you have your own troubles and worries and work but there's someone in your life who has loved you for a very long time and has made sure to let you know how beloved you are. We have had some fabulous times together and some wonderful talks as well but they've become non- existent. 

     I'm 81 now and hope to live a long time but I can't count on it. No one knows what tomorrow brings. What I want to feel until the end of my life is loved by my family and that means hearing your voices and hearing your stories and worries and happiness as well. That won't happen unless you are aware that I am here still with my intelligence intact and with wisdom to share, as well as letting you know, if you care, about all the things I am doing to stay relevant...there's that word again. 

     So, if you do think of me...pick up the phone...or when you're home visiting your mother, make an effort to come see me as well. That shouldn't be a hardship if you love me as much as I love you. 

All my love,

Did it work? Yes. I received a call from both of them. And I continue to hear from them as their busy lives permit. Case closed? Not quite.

After I heard from my grandchildren, something was still niggling at me, and for a while I wasn't sure what it was. I had a long think and even wrote out my thoughts. That helped me realize that it was I who was being an unaware grandmother. My dissatisfaction had nothing to do with my grandchildren not calling and everything to do with the way I was thinking about myself and my life. Blaming someone else for my unhappiness is what I was doing. And from that realization came the awareness that the generation to which my grandchildren belong does not think the way my generation does and did. Their priorities are different. Their wants and needs and social desires belong to their generation. Do they love me? Yes, they do. Do they show it? Yes, of course they do, in their own ways and by their own means. Do I wish to hear from them more often? Yes, I certainly do. But I can make that happen by just picking up the phone and calling them to hear their voices as I would prefer, or as they may prefer texting to catch up.

It seems so simple now. I, as do we all, have to beware of negative thinking that can pervert the joy of living, the joy of family. No matter the circumstance in which I find myself I hope to remember that what I dedicate my mind to is a choice. I choose positivity. I choose remaining close to my grandchildren by honoring who they are and what are their preferences. I choose to find out more about what they are looking forward to, what makes them happy, and most of all, to learn how I might help them in whatever way they need. My happiness and fulfillment is my responsibility. I choose to remember that every day from here on out.  

Source: Pexels, Bruce Mars, free to use

One of the most hurtful experiences any of us can have is when a wonderful friend suddenly disappears from our lives. It’s a jolt and it’s very painful.

This situation is one I have run across frequently in my mediation and counseling practice.  I have found three different ways of responding to it and thinking about it. They are radically different, and are:

ONE: ACCEPTANCE

Life is a Brownian motion of human beings, where we are always in constant process, connecting, disconnecting, reconnecting, caught up in an endless whirl of mutation and flux.  The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, ”The only thing constant is change.  You can’t step in the same river twice, and if you could, you wouldn’t be the same person.”

In addition, all of our lives are filled with mystery and mysteries.  And sometimes events happen that dramatically reveal just how mysterious our lives really are. The deaths, by their own hands, of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain are perplexing examples.

Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain were both people who were wealthy, accomplished, successful, world famous, attractive, charismatic, and were both loved and admired by universes of fans.

Yet they both found their lives so painful that they chose to end them. 

Why? 

It is an incomprehensible mystery. 

So, to return to our original question, Why is it that sometimes Best Fiends Forever suddenly aren’t?  The real answer may be that some things just don’t make sense and can’t really be explained. We just have to accept them.

TWO: A PRO-ACTIVE REPAIR STRATEGY

Strategy Number One was acceptance, and Strategy Two is the complete opposite.  Strategy Two is a step-by-step strategy to repair the rift.  Here are the steps:

1.  Communicate to the other person verbally or by phone, if possible.  If not, send a card or a letter.  This is the message to communicate (in your own words.) “We used to be very close.  But then something happened and now we’re not.”

2. “I’m not sure what it was that happened. I’m really not!  And whatever it was that happened, may have been my fault!”

3. “If whatever it was that happened was my fault, I apologize!”

4. “I would like to start over again and be friends again, because I greatly value your friendship. Could we meet somewhere and have coffee and talk?”

This is a very simple four-step strategy.  But all the four steps are key, and need to be done in sequence, with nothing omitted:  1. We used to be friends and now we aren’t. 2. Something happened, and I don’t know what it was.  It may have been my fault. 3.  If it was my fault I apologize.  4. I value you and would like to be friends again.

Very simple and, yes, it’s hard to do.  But it is highly effective.  Of the three different responses to a friendship breakdown, this is the one I have used (for clients) most often and most successfully.

THREE: UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF IDENTITY IN FRIENDSHIP

We all have some primary “identity,” that personal, irreducible substrate that in some basic sense defines “who we are.” But we also have other secondary identities, which may arise organically out of our primary identity, or in various ways, be in tension or conflict with our primary identity.  This is where it gets complicated. 

We are constantly surrounded by other possible identities or ways to live our lives and think about ourselves.  Some of those are imposed on us by external agencies (family, society, job). But others are aspirational: things we would like to do, or new ways we would like to live.  

We are often in flux as to what identity most truly represents us.  Or which identity could best fulfill who we would really like to be. 

Enter friendship. 

When a longtime close friendship suddenly disrupts, the disruption may have come about because the other party is negotiating some kind of identity change.  

Ironically, it may be that the other person may not be rejecting you. They may in fact be rejecting themselves, which you may now represent, because you remind them of their old, discarded identity!

There are many variations in human dynamics, that stem from the choosing and rejecting of secondary personal identities.

We’re complex folks, we humans!

David Evans

© 2019 David Evans

This post is written by guest blogger Erica Lee.

Pew Research Center hosted the RLS survey asking more than 35,000 Americans from all 50 states about their religious affiliations, beliefs and practices, and social and political views. 70% of participants reported identification with the Christian faith in one sect or another. In 2019 in the United States it is time to capitalize on the psychic meaning of this faith and truly resurrect the spirit of Christ. Whether you call it Christ, Buddha nature, Higher Self, Universe, nature or Bob, the essence of all humankind is the same.

This essence lives in all of us, including those who have literally crossed the desert and are trying to make it to the American Dream. We owe it to them to walk our talk.

Easter is about reviving the Life of this essence. It is about Spring renewal and breaking through perceived limitations as the dandelion flower does with concrete. The meaning of Jesus dying on the cross and rising again three days later doesn’t mean he died on the cross for us. It means he came back and let everyone know “you cannot crucify the real me!” We all have or have had our cross to bear and have felt the victory of overcoming. Whether it has to do with financial struggles, impaired health, loss of a loved one, persecution, mental illness, and the list goes on, we have all felt a psychic crucifixion and subsequent resurrection. We might not use that language. Instead we might say, “we bounced back or are feeling like ourselves again”. As Michelle Obama eloquently articulated, “when you're fortunate enough, you know to hold the door open for others. And he (Barack Obama) believes that when you've worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity...you do not slam it shut behind you...you reach back, and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed.”

Easter this year I am faced with the reality that many people of Christian faith will be dining at restaurants across the country while millions of undocumented immigrant workers have grown, harvested, produced and cooked their celebratory meals. These workers operate in the shadows, behind the scenes, much like our Higher Self, however you relate to it, does. Tirelessly, they labor so that we can enjoy these precious moments of mental, physical and Spiritual sustenance. They are doing their work whether they are thanked or not, liked or not, even welcomed or not. America’s immigration system is broken. That’s not news. People of moral understanding and investment do, however,  have two options today: to identify with the crucifixion or to identify with the resurrection.

The word ‘religion’ comes from the root word religio meaning bond, obligation, reverence. These are aspects of consciousness, not just religious jargon. We are all bound to the consequences of what we revere. It is not a matter of if, but how. As it is said in Yogic philosophy, “you become what you worship.” And we all worship something, whether it’s kindness or harassment, acceptance or condemnation.

The story goes that as Jesus spent 40 days and nights in the desert, he fasted as a means of getting closer to God. Without the dependence of material sustenance, he was fully dependent on the power of Love to sustain him. Lent is observed as a representation of this sacrament and as a way to draw closer to internal Truth. The Washington Post reports that the top three things people give up are: 1) going to school; 2) chocolate; and 3) Twitter. With all due respect, we can do better than that. How about we give up sacrifice in general? What would it look like if we gave up on giving up on ourselves? How would our world transform if we religiously practiced giving up ignorance, violence, discrimination, racism, and separation?

As far as I can tell, if there really was a man named Jesus who walked this Earth over 2,000 years ago preaching love, acceptance, and working miracles, then let’s take the words he spoke, “all of this and more you can do” really close to heart. He was not asking us to gather around once a year and gorge ourselves with pancakes, bottomless mimosas and sugar-laden candies. There’s nothing innately wrong with any of that, but to what end? I think he was asking us to be sacrificial of a very superficial version of ourselves, that our True self may rise to the occasion.

Jesus is reported to have looked after what would be equivalent to the impoverished “untouchables” in India of his time. He let the ‘powers that were’ know through countless generous acts that “oppression will not be happening on my watch.” Miracles come from unexpected places. A Course in Miracles describes a miracle as a shift in perspective from fear to love. All across America we have the opportunity to work miracles where there are open wounds from our not having tended to the relationships that will forge a stronger America. Every wave of immigrants that come to the United States has strengthened us.

When Jesus came out of his fast in the desert, he was crucified. Sound familiar? This was not an isolated insolent. We desecrate the name of God every time we manufacture an enemy to oppress. We resurrect the name of God every time we turn an ancient hate into a present love. Friends from the South have been traveling here because they have heard rumors of the American Dream to the North. They have strapped their children on their backs and literally walked through the desert to arrive here and have been maliciously crucified by detention centers, ICE agents, inhumane living conditions and politically disengaged American citizens.

There are accounts that the people who discovered Jesus resurrected three days after his death were women. In all actuality, it doesn’t even matter if it was real or not. It’s such a real archetype of the human journey that it’s true even if it never happened. The symbolism of women finding Jesus resurrected is that it is our soft skills, our feminine nature, our receptivity and capacity to be in relationship with that will save us today. We are out of balance. There is nothing wrong with masculinity. In its purity, it is a pinnacle of our psychic power. It has been perverted and corrupted. Masculinity does not mean greed and hatred. That is what fear means. We are not as malicious as we have been presenting with the people integrating into this country. We have, however, forgotten as a people who we are, who they are and why we have truly come to this planet. It is time to resurrect human potential and establish a system that truly empowers and enables everyone to reach their “highest possible creative expression in this lifetime,” as Marianne Williamson, author, activist and 2020 Presidential candidate says.

I do not believe random acts of kindness will move the needle. I think random acts of kindness (RAK) are wonderful and needed in this world but there is no amount of charity that will compensate for a basic lack of human dignity in legislation and law. I invite you to go out of your way to thank and appropriately compensate the people who make your life easier. Thank the cooks and janitors, the caretakers and farmers. Let them know they are seen and appreciated. Also, call your Congressman/woman, let them know your opinion and urge them to put adequate resources into real solutions, get involved with a local non-profit that is doing good work. Hope is born from participating in hopeful action.

My personal faith leads me to believe that God did send help, God sent us. We are to let our hands and feet, eyes and ears serve a greater expression of Love. We will realize peace on Earth and one day we will look back and say, “I don’t miss those days.”

United States Capital Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Visit, learn more & volunteer:

casadepazcolorado.org

helpdetainedimmigrants.com

freedomforimmigrants.org

Source: StockSnap / Pixabay

APA style is the formal writing style that is endorsed by the APA (American Psychological Association). It’s got lots of rules (e.g., within a parenthetical citation, use an ampersand (&), but outside a parenthetical, use the word “and” in between the names of authors). And it bears on the entirety of a paper. From the title page to the final concluding sentence. And everything in between. And even a bunch of stuff after.

Back when I was a student, I remember thinking that APA style was arbitrary. Who cares if I didn’t put the year of the publication in the in-text citation? Who cares if I didn’t double-space my references? Why does it matter if the term “Abstract” at the start of the abstract is not centered? Seriously!!!

Years later, I’ve had something of a change of heart when it comes to APA style. If you’re a student of mine, you know that I’d much rather talk about actual content than about the details of APA style now. This said, I do think that mastering APA style is important (even if I’m fuzzy on a rule here or there!).

Why is APA Style Important?

At its core, APA style is a set of guidelines that pertain to manuscripts in scientific psychology that are submitted to journal editors for publication consideration. In other words, this is a format that a paper should be in when you want someone who runs an academic journal to publish your work as an article. An academic journal is pretty much a scholarly magazine that includes a peer-review process before papers are accepted to become articles. Many journal editors receive more manuscript submissions than they have space to publish. Only some fraction of submitted manuscripts will ultimately be accepted for publication in an academic journal.

Before a manuscript (i.e., a paper) is accepted (if the author is so fortunate!), it goes through a rigorous review process. The editor sends the paper out to a few experts on the topic of the paper. These experts read it, provide critical (often VERY critical) feedback, and then the editor takes this feedback into account and makes a determination as to whether the paper should be published as an article in the journal.*

Most journals in psychology and related fields require that the paper be in APA format. So from the perspective of a scholar in the field of the behavioral sciences, you need to master APA format because otherwise you are probably going to have your papers rejected, even if your ideas are terrific.

Imagine a journal editor who receives 200 manuscripts to review in a given year. But that same editor's journal only has space to publish 40 articles in a year. Some pretty stringent screening is necessary. In the field of academic publishing in psychology, I can tell you this: Basic APA formatting is screen number one. If you’re paper misses the mark when it comes to APA formatting, good luck getting it published in an academic journal in psychology. Journal editors are way too busy to be dealing with papers that don’t meet basic APA standards.

In training students in the field of scientific psychology, then, it is critical for professors to mentor students in the process of APA writing. This style of writing is considered essential for professionals in the field.

What is APA Style?

APA Style is a method of writing that summarizes a set of scientific ideas. Usually, we think of it as a style that summarizes a report of some scientific study or set of studies that include actual data and a summary of the results. An APA style paper can also describe a proposed study (or set of studies) or it might summarize some theoretical, conceptual ideas on a topic. But a report of actual research is kind of the prototype of an APA-style paper.

So imagine you conducted some study on some psychological variables. Maybe you measured people’s level of extraversion (outgoingness) in a sample of 100 adults. And perhaps you also asked each person in your study to complete a measure of risk taking. And then suppose that your basic finding is that there is a positive and significant relationship between extraversion and risk taking. In short, you found evidence that extraverts tend to report being risky relative to the reports of introverts.

OK. So how would you write that up in a way that was able to convey your findings and their implications to the scientific community? If you look carefully at the overall structure of APA formatting, you will see that at its core, it is all about making it so that your presentation of your research is coherent and well-organized.

First you’ve got your title page. Here, you’re writing a headline and telling the audience who you are and where you come from. You might title this paper something like “Extraverts are Riskier than Introverts Are: A Correlational Study.” The title kind of bottom-lines the study.

Next, you will write an abstract in APA format. I like to think of the abstract as being the version of your paper written for very busy people. If you had to summarize your entire research in 150 words or less, what would you say? What information would be essential? What information could be left out and included in more detail later? Writing a strong and clear abstract is an intellectual skill that is, in my mind, almost without rival. It’s that important.

Next you have your Introduction. Don’t be fooled. Some people call this section the “literature review,” but that’s not a great way to think about it. Sure, you will be reviewing some past literature along the way. But the main thing that you are doing here is telling the reader what the main question is for your research and how this question has been studied in the past. And why it is important.  Ultimately, your introduction should be very linear. Each sentence should point toward the next sentence, with this section culminating in a way that makes your research question obviously important and ready to be studied. The final sentence of your introduction for the example used here might be something like “For these reasons, it is important for us to better understand the relationship between extraversion and risk taking.”

After your introduction, you have your Method section. This section should be written as if you are writing down a cookie recipe for someone across the world to follow. Your goal is to have that person bake the cookies in a way that is exactly like you and your mom make them!

The Method section describes the methods by which you collected your data. Who were the participants? What variables did you measure? How did you measure them? etc.

After you describe your methods for data collection, you need to describe what you found. This is your Results section. Here, you describe how you analyzed your data. You might say that you calculated a correlation coefficient between the two main variables (in this example, extraversion and risk taking). You might say how large that effect was and if that effect was in the predicted direction. You could also comment on “statistical significance," speaking to whether the finding was beyond what would be expected by chance.

Your study might have many variables and even experimental manipulations. You might have a lot to say when it comes to your results! This said, always remember that your audience is a person who has limited time and who probably cares about your research way less than you do. So, as is always the case, be parsimonious in writing your Results section. That is, make sure that your writing is streamlined and to the point.

Next, you write your Discussion section. Here, you step back and, literally, discuss your results in a broader sense. What are the implications of your findings? Were you correct with your predictions? Do your findings match past findings on this topic? Do your data tell the world something new? Were there problems and limitations in your data-collection process? What is your bottom-line conclusion—why does your research matter?

And that’s not all! In APA format, you need to then provide a References section. Here, you present the required information on the scholarly sources that you used in your research. By “scholarly,” I mean academic publications. It pains me to say this, but typically, Psychology Today does not count! Here, you will cite academic journal articles that have already been peer-reviewed and published. You may also cite academic books, book chapters, and similar sources. Generally, you should NOT cite websites. And you should DEFINITELY NOT cite Wikipedia. See your university's library for information on what all constitutes a scholarly sources. The library should be full of these kind of sources!

And here is a tip regarding your References section: The easiest way for someone to spot shoddy APA style is found in your References section. The formatting rules are super-clear and specific. Do not write authors’ first names. Indent after the first line within each reference. Italicize journal titles. etc. Mastering these details is not really that difficult. You simply need to follow the guidance in the APA style guide or in a similar guide on APA style. I personally like to simply check out the details found in the APA sample paper found here. As I tell my students, just follow it! If it is italicized there, italicize it. If the page numbers are listed after the volume number of the journal in the example paper, then do that. If the first words of the journal in a reference are capitalized, then do that. etc. The easiest way to look like an amateur in this field is to botch your APA style when it comes to references. Don’t let that be you!

Bottom Line

APA style may seem arbitrary and unforgiving. But the rules that comprise APA style have, in fact, been well-honed over the years to help present scientific findings in a coherent and meaningful way. Mastering APA is, in fact, an essential part of a psychology education. If you want people in the field to give your ideas any credence whatsoever, make sure that your APA skills are sharp as a tack.

*This is a very abbreviated version of the peer-review process in academic publishing.

Source: Pixabay, Public Domain

Here are some thoughts on six major life decisions:

Go to college?  (Many of these questions also apply if deciding whether to go to graduate school.)

Your answers to these True/False questions may help you decide:

• In high school, you’ve enjoyed academic learning  (English, math, science, social studies, foreign language) and are eager to do more at a higher level.
• You’re at least fairly sure of the career you want to pursue and that career requires one or more degrees, for example, engineering, law, health care.
• To learn well, you'd rather trade the freedom of choosing what and how you want to learn things for the structure of school: required class attendance, specific readings, and homework.
• You don’t feel ready to start your own business nor to develop entrepreneurial skills at the elbow of a successful and ethical businessperson.
• You’re not attracted to options like the military nor to a job working your way up from the bottom.
• You or at least your family can afford the cost of college. Note that unless you’re attending a college at which you will be an above-average student or are otherwise deemed particularly desirable (athlete, musician, legacy, “underrepresented” minority) and so the college dangles a significant discount to attract you, much if any “financial aid” will be loan, which must be repaid with interest and cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. Important: Cost can be an unimportant factor at community colleges, which perhaps surprisingly, on average, have better teachers of undergraduates as well as offering more practical courses.

Do what you love for a career?

“Do what you love!” and “Follow your passion!” are widely preached. And sometimes, that’s wise counsel—If you’re able to land a good job doing what you love. Alas, too many people love one of just a few things: sports, fashion, entertainment, big-money jobs like venture capital, investment banking or corporate law, nonprofit work, and yes, psychotherapy and counseling.

Having been career coach to 5,500 people, I’ve concluded that you’re more likely to find career contentment by avoiding the popular careers—Competition there is fierce so that unless you’re a star, employers tend to treat you poorly, knowing there are many wannabes eager for your job, sometimes even for a volunteer position. Career contentment more likely derives from work that is of moderate difficulty, with a decent boss and coworkers, reasonable pay and commute, and an ethical work product. You’re more likely to get those in fields that lie—to quote Thomas Hardy— far from the madding crowd.

Quit your job?

That depends on how viable you are for a better job. If you’re capable enough and your resume shows it and/or you have strong network connections into likely better work, err on the side of quitting or at least of quietly putting out feelers while remaining on your current job. However, if you’re less marketable, it may be wiser to focus on how you might get happier in your current workplace: get your job description or boss changed, improve your skills or attitude, etc.

Marry?

Today's increasing enmity between the sexes atop the 50% divorce rate (sometimes a protracted, expensive affair,) means we need be more circumspect than ever before deciding to tie the knot. Yes, if you’re confident that you’ll remain compatible in and out of bed, you’ll enduringly bring out the best in each other, you’re both reasonably employed or otherwise are financially at least marginally okay, neither of you have a marriage-devastating characteristic such as substance abuse, major mental illness, or an angermanagement problem, and ineffably, you feel like you’re meant to be together forever, great!—I’ve been married to my wife for 42 years and glad I am. But more than ever, it’s wise to not marry because—as many people still do— it’s the thing to do. Of course, being fully rational in matters of love is difficult, but do your best to, in a clear-eyed way, decide if  “Until death do us part” is wise.

Have kids? 

For many people, having children is the highlight of their life: It’s touching to see the product of your egg and sperm or the child you adopt gradually grow into an adult, culminating in a close, positive lifelong relationship. But while it’s unseemly to verbalize this, many parents, in retrospect, wonder whether the 18+ year major replacement of freedom with obligation and cost was worth it. And what if your child turns out to be unusually challenging—oppositional or with a major physical or mental illness?

Address your substance abuse?  

For some people, the pleasure of mind-altering substances, commonly alcohol or marijuana, outweigh the downsides. But other people, if they’re being honest, realize that the short-term pleasure is dwarfed by the long-term negatives per a 2017 meta-evaluation of 200 authoritative studies by the National Academies of Sciences and a 2018 summary of research findings by the National Centers for Disease Control: IQ loss, memory loss, motivation decrease, increased risk of depression, social anxiety, psychosis, vehicle accidents, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

The takeaway

With such complex, major decisions, and the wide variability among people, no brief discussion can substitute for thorough consideration of your particular circumstances but perhaps this article can be a springboard for such consideration.

I read this aloud on YouTube.

In my previous post (Part 1 of this essay) I discussed themes related to our feelings of discontent.  I described differences between unhappiness, sorrow, and sadness.  I considered, with the help of Robert Burton’s 400-year-old masterpiece The Anatomy of Melancholy, some causes of those conditions.

In Part 2 of this essay, I explore feelings of discontent as difficulties in our “relationships” with the world.  To be sure, there are different kinds of relationships that affect us.  Some discontent is traceable to physiological imbalances. Under such circumstances, medication or other kinds of bodily readjustment and healthful living may be appropriate responses.  Pertinent also are persisting psychological disturbances – perhaps traumatic events we have experienced in our lives, addictions we cannot shake, or other destructive behaviors that keep us from operating at our best.

With all respect to those types of causes, and to the psychotherapists and health practitioners that address them, I want to focus here on social and cultural factors as sources of unhappiness.

To be sure, there is a sense in which unhappiness is an individual, even psychological, matter.  All of us maintain personal expectations for how the world operates.  Some of those anticipations are standards, that is, visions of what we consider preferred or “good” conditions.  We don’t like to see our standards violated, especially when the events in question are important to us.  At such times, dissatisfaction turns into unhappiness, which may linger within us as sadness and sorrow.

To be unhappy then is to ponder the perceived gap between our understandings of good conditions and the conditions that currently prevail.  We feel worse as that gap widens and better as it closes.  We feel very good when we exceed those desired conditions (perhaps winning a lottery or getting an unanticipated A on a test).  We feel miserable when events descend toward what we conceive to be worst conditions, perhaps realizing our “darkest fears.”

Much of life – and of our quest to be happy ˗ features attempts to reconcile our expectations for existence with the conditions we encounter.  Sometimes that means attempting to change those worldly conditions (and by implication our own behaviors) to make them approach those expectations.  Alternately, we fiddle with our standards, moderating them so they align better with the lives we lead.  Most of us think of maturity or wisdom as the ability to develop reasonable standards, both for ourselves and for the world we live in and, more than that, to decide which things we can change and which things we must endure.

Be clear that the standards we apply are complicated, fluid, and sometimes situation specific.  We may have different standards for different areas of life (think of job success, romantic involvement, friendship, family ties, physical well-being, leisure endeavors, and so forth).  We may declare some of these areas more important than others (perhaps support of family and friends instead of job success).  We may shift the reference groups that are the basis of our standards (perhaps comparing ourselves to “people like us” rather than some vaunted person).  We may further adjust that focus by bringing up examples of the terrible things that can happen to people (“Poor Jones is sick; his wife left him; his son is in jail.  Really, I should count my blessings.”)  We can shift our concern from our own circumstances to those of others, such as our children.  Who of us does not rationalize their existence in similar ways?

I once wrote a book that presented the emotions – and happiness, in particular ˗ in those very terms.  But this is an incomplete theory of what makes people happy and unhappy.       

Although we possess personal standards (sometimes quite rigid ideas) for how the world should operate, other kinds of standards are equally important in our quest to be happy.  Those standards include basic physical and psychological needs, the commitments of the groups we belong to, the values of the wider culture, and even our perceptions of the “interests” of ourselves and of others.

What I’m arguing then is these patterns of expectation, essentially expressions of our life conditions, are also crucial elements of happiness.  These conditions make claims on us, urging us to do one thing or the other.  Some of these claims countermand our cherished values or ideas.  In much the same fashion, we also make claims on the life-conditions that confront us. That is to say, our relationships with the world are dialectical affairs, patterns of give-and-take.  Frequently, we are able to impose our will on situations, but even more frequently, we have to accede to the wishes of otherness.  This interaction is especially apparent in our relationships with other people.

This is the theme ˗ how different kinds of relationships create different kinds of challenges ˗ that I comment on in what follows.  I describe four different kinds of relationships: subordination, privilege, marginality, and engagement.  Each one generates distinctive possibilities for happiness – and for unhappiness.

Subordination and feelings of Entrapment

Subordination is perhaps the most apparent source of unhappiness, at least in a rights-oriented society like ours.  Although there are many occasions where we willingly accept the directives of superiors (think of parents, teachers, coaches, bosses, ministers, and the like), for the most part we like to experience the feeling of being in charge of our own thoughts and behaviors.  When we direct our own involvement in the world, we have the best chance of aligning it with our standards.  We can start, stop, and otherwise manage our behavior at will.  Granted we may fail as often as we succeed. Still, we do this on our own terms.

Under conditions of subordination, others tell us what to do.  We may not accept the standards they impose.  To make matters worse, there may be little we can do about their ability to control us.  Commonly then, we live with a sense of blocked opportunity, of deferred or unrealized dreams.  One response is to try to accept the standards others impose on us, and the identities they require us to hold (Karl Marx called this acceptance “false consciousness”).  Similarly, we may deny that we have any ability to change our predicament (Jean-Paul Sartre called that denial “bad faith”).  Still, we recognize that we are not able to do the same things as other, more advantaged people in our society. I call such feelings of blockage and hopelessness Entrapment.

Privilege and feelings of Normlessness

What if we occupy a position opposite to the one just described?  We have resources galore.  We can go and do as we please.  We are able to control other people instead of being controlled by them.  Surely, that condition of privilege is the good life.

Not so. At least that is what the great sociologist Emile Durkheim argued.  Durkheim claimed that we humans need social and cultural directives to fulfill ourselves as persons.  That is, we need others to express their concern for our welfare; we need to reciprocate that concern.  Without that sense of willing obligation to others ˗ call it “responsibility” ˗ we merely bounce around from one self-nominated pursuit to another.  Ultimately, we become prisoners of our own desires, which we discover to be endless in their variety and quality of incompletion. At some point, existence follows the tyranny of whim.  Durkheim termed that lack of social commitment “anomie,” which is the Greek term for Normlessness.

Once again, our culture – especially our culture of advertising˗ celebrates this ethic of boundless domination.  We celebrate freedom of personal choice, however, worthy or unworthy those choices may be.  In ads, beautiful people are shown at exotic places pursuing fanciful adventures, all permitted by the passport of money.  Smiling others are shown greeting them and doing their bidding.  The ideal life, or so it seems, is cultural masturbation.

However, most of know that incessant willfulness is ultimately empty.  We need other people around us, not as minions but as persons we care for and respect.  Without firm commitments from others, our own standards weaken and collapse.  A day at the beach or spa is only that.  The better forms of happiness express our caring, consistent involvement in the lives of others.

Marginality and feelings of Isolation

The previous two conditions feature direct relationships with others, though those relationships may not be what we desire or even what is in our best interest.  Different from both is the condition where we have few connections to society, perhaps even to family and friends.  I call this pattern marginality.

Once again, our society sometimes glamorizes this condition of being on the edge, or perhaps beyond the reach, of society’s powers. Wouldn’t it be grand to be a cowboy alone on the prairie, a solitary mountaineer, or an eccentric genius fascinated with his or her personal creations? Nobody could tell you what to do.

Less glamorously, many people endure this condition as a fact of daily living.  They live alone in apartments, wander streets, or stare at the walls of jail cells.  Countless others find themselves cut off from society’s normal routes and routines.  They are old, poor, physically disabled, psychologically challenged, or marked as outsiders by criteria or gender, religion, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other matters.

Perhaps these marginalized people, like the rest of us,  find comfort in small circles of family and friends.  Perhaps they take pride in their special identities or join organizations that represent their concerns to the public at large.  Those limited contacts may be enough to build a satisfying life.  But there is inevitably the knowledge that many people in society do not accept them, indeed have marked them with these identities in order to shun them and to restrict their access to that society’s valued resources. 

Isolation ˗ the awareness that one is cut off from others, unable to contact them or to receive their contact ˗ is a profound disturbance of its own sort.  Defensively, some marginals may insist they don’t want contact with those who reject them. However, all of us need the support of communities of caring support; and our self-estimations expand consistently with the expansion of those communities.

Engagement and feelings of Meaninglessness

Many readers, or so I believe, would say that none of the above types approximates their life-conditions.  Those readers are actively involved in their communities of concern.  They feel comfortable going about on public byways.  They do not expect shunning or reproof.  They have little desire to lord it over others; nor do they expect those others to dominate them.

Most relationships with other people feature patterns of give-and-take, and the compromises that result from such dealings.  At least that is the case for those who understand themselves to be of the middle-class, of “mainstream” identities, and otherwise unrestricted in their expression of interests and beliefs.  Day-to-day interactions for such people feature countless engagements with those of relatively similar status ˗ the store clerk, the plumber, the insurance agent, the coach of the Little league team.  Life is an exchange of services, sometimes on money terms.

Rare is the person who would say that their life is not “busy” in just these ways.  Even children find themselves over-scheduled.  Some enjoy the hectic routine; it makes them feel vibrant and involved.  How can any of this be a problem?

It is a problem, or so I would maintain, if that involvement is mostly a ritualization of life energies. Getting the car serviced, going to the dentist, attending exercise class, meeting with a child’s teacher, turning in a report at work, and so forth may all be necessary enough.  However, there should also be occasions where people reaffirm what is fundamentally important in their lives.  Potentially, years can go by where the minutiae of existence overwhelm us.  Involvement seems like happiness, but is it?

In my view, Meaninglessness is the danger of the over-involved life.  For many reasons, we do what we think is required to make our lives, and the lives of our loved ones, successful.  But how hard have we thought about the various meanings of “success” or “happiness” and how complicit are we in fabricating a world that entraps the people we care about?  Stepping back from routine ˗ and reaffirming fundamental values – is one response to an existence turned robotic.                      

Being unhappy means that we have somehow departed from our better standards for living.  We have lost connection with the basic human resources we need to make our lives whole.  Reevaluating those connections, re-imagining our self-trajectories, and redirecting our energies is the challenge of the committed life.

Here is the last of a three-part series on Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of memory loss and dementia. Part 1 discussed its pathology and stages. Part 2 discussed how Alzheimer’s disease can be diagnosed during life.

Family history of Alzheimer’s disease increases the chances of developing it between twofold and fourfold

Because Alzheimer’s is the most common disorder affecting thinking and memory in old age, we are all at risk for developing the disease, approaching 40 to 50% by age 85. If one has a family history of memory problems that sound like Alzheimer’s disease in a parent or a sibling, the risk of Alzheimer’s disease does rise, such that it becomes two to four times more likely that the cause of the memory problems is due to Alzheimer’s rather than something else. For example, if the overall risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease between ages 65 and 70 is about 2.5%, the risk without a family history is about 1.5%, whereas the risk with a family history is between 3 and 6%.  But there is certainly a large proportion of people with a family history of Alzheimer’s who never develop the disease themselves.

Genes can cause too much beta amyloid to accumulate

We know that some people have genetic differences that cause either too much amyloid to be formed or not enough to be cleared. The most common genetic variation that can lead to Alzheimer’s disease is the APOE-e4 gene, which appears to be related to reduced clearance of beta amyloid. This gene is a major reason that individuals with a family history of Alzheimer’s are more likely to develop the disease themselves. But we do not recommend testing for it, as it cannot determine whether Alzheimer’s disease is present or not, nor whether it will develop in the future.

Alzheimer’s disease is more common in women

Of the 5.1 million people in the United States with Alzheimer’s disease age 65 and older, approximately 3.2 million are women. Part of the answer is that Alzheimer’s is more common as people age, and women live longer than men. Other explanations are being actively investigated.

Alzheimer’s disease is not part of normal aging

Given how common Alzheimer’s disease is in individuals in their 70s and 80s, it is reasonable to wonder if Alzheimer’s is just part of normal aging. However, there are many people who live into their 90s or even 100s without developing Alzheimer’s disease either clinically or pathologically (when their brains are looked at after death under a microscope). In fact, it is estimated that roughly half of individuals age 85 and older do not have Alzheimer’s or any other type of dementia. So, although Alzheimer’s disease is more common with aging, it is not a normal part of it.

Reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease by aerobic exercise, eating healthy, and being socially active

Want to reduce your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease? There is increasing evidence that several lifestyle choices including engaging in regular aerobic exercise, eating a Mediterranean-style diet, staying socially active, and can help to keep your thinking and memory as strong as possible.

Key Questions:

Q: Your friend told you that there is nothing you can do about Alzheimer’s disease because if we live long enough everyone will get it. Is that true?

A: No. Alzheimer’s disease is more common in aging but many people live to age 90 or 100 without the disease. Aerobic exercise, social activities, and healthy eating can all help reduce one’s chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Q: No one in my family history had Alzheimer’s disease. That means I won’t get it, right?

A: No. Although the risk is less without a family history, everyone is at risk for Alzheimer’s disease as they get older.

© Andrew E. Budson, MD, 2019, all rights reserved.

There has been a decent amount written about the rise in entitlement in the Millennial generation. From the cover of Time in May 2013 (Stein), to Forbes articles about it, to companies trying to find ways to make it benefit them. A peer reviewed article I read indicated, “The Millennial generation has been termed a generation of entitlement by the popular press” and went on to empirically research whether it was true. They concluded,  “our findings add empirical support for the popular press assertions that the Millennials do indeed have a stronger sense of entitlement than the other generational groups currently in the workforce”. 

At the same time, reports abound that this generation is diagnosed more with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Stein, in his article for Time, reports that “58% more college students scored higher on a narcissism scale in 2009 than in 1982”. Anecdotally, colleagues have complained that this generation expects to be spoon fed A’s at the university level. These same colleagues have bemoaned the changes in their own teaching practices, as they cave in to expectation.

Two different podcasts recently focused on similar issues. One was about a writer’s son, who imitates star players in the NBA and complains to the referees. In this podcast (No Fair!, This American Life, 2019) Michael Lewis goes from his son’s on the court antics, to those of star NBA players, to psychological studies that demonstrate those who feel a sense of privilege do not feel the rules apply to them compared to those that are less privileged. 

In the second podcast, The End of Empathy from Invisibilia, Hannah Rosen debates with her younger producer Lina Misitzis about whether the purpose of this podcast is to induce empathy and why. While exploring the why, studies are cited that indicate that after forty-years of asking groups the same set of questions focused on empathy, that “starting around 2000, the line starts to dip for all dimensions of empathy”. She goes on to say that by 2009 there was a 40% dip from her generation (elementary school in the 70’s). 

It stands to reason that with the rise of privilege, entitlement, and narcissism, a drop in empathy would ensue. But what does all of this mean? Some have wondered what will come of a world that has become so selfish. Many simply blame millennials.

This reminds me of a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh: “When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well.” (p.78). In discussing the entitlement of  Millennials years ago with a young person considering herself an apprentice, she retorted it is my generation’s fault her generation is entitled. She was likely unaware how many agree (Stein and Allen, for example, among many others). The self-esteem movement, participation trophies, technology, and social networking are also often cited as blameworthy. 

Many experts in the area, however, are not so concerned. In the above-mentioned podcast, the host is introduced to the idea that too much empathy fuels terrorism and support of war by Indiana University professor Fritz Breithaupt. The producer, Lina Misitzis, purports the idea that empathy, when applied to perpetrators, can further push sides apart, and puts other at-risk populations at further risk. This occurs because empathy saps conviction. 

Stein rounds out his article with the positives about millennials and claims they will save us all. He states, “They are pragmatic idealists, tinkerers more than dreamers, life hackers.” He quotes others with similar positivity about this generation. Stein also references Tom Brokaw, who champions Millennials as “the wary generation”. Stein suggests Millennials optimism will lead to more success than “wearing flannel, complaining, and making Indie movies about it” (an apparent jab at Generation X). 

To conclude, there are positives and negatives about everything. Even a decrease in empathy, and this from a therapist and someone who embraces many Eastern principles including fostering love and empathy, has a positive side. For those that worry about younger generations, I am reminded of this quote: “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority…Children now are tyrants…and tyrannize their teachers.”. One might think this applies to Millennials, but it was the ancient philosopher Socrates who said it. 

Copyright William Berry, 2019

We live in a digital world with a Stone Age brain. How does that work out? Well, a lot of my research and blog posts deal with exactly that issue. Why do we prefer taller political leaders? Why does disgust affect our political preferences? Or why do they give out those silly “I voted” stickers?

Source: Ronald Giphart and Mark van Vugt.

I just read a cool pop science book that provides a thorough but accessible explanation of one of the forces that drive these strange effects. That force is called “evolutionary mismatch,” and the name of the book is, aptly, Mismatch: How Our Stone Age Brain Deceives Us Every Day and What We Can Do About It. 

Mismatch was written by Ronald Giphart, an award-winning Dutch writer, and Professor Mark van Vugt, a widely published evolutionary psychologist at VU University and fellow PT blogger.

MORE MISMATCH DETAILS PLEASE

Here’s the mismatch problem in a nutshell. Modern humans must navigate an anonymous but densely populated, digitally dependent world with a brain molded starting millions of years ago in small hunter-gatherer groups composed of family and friends who roamed sparsely populated, open grasslands.

This is mismatch, which Giphart and van Vugt define more succinctly as occurring when “as the result of a change in the environment, the survival and reproductive chances of [a] particular species’ individuals diminish” (p. 4) or “when species are faced with a rapidly changing environment to which their hardware and software – their body and mind – are not well adapted” (p. 18).

In particular, Mismatch details how modern humans’ bodies and minds are tuned to the physical and social situations that our ancestors found themselves in between 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago. During this period, known as the “environment of evolutionary adaptation” or EEA, our ancestors had to survive a variety of menacing threats including “famine, spiders and insect bites, large predators, much internal violence, and high baby and infant mortality” (p. 59). Because the process of evolution is almost imperceptibly slow, our brains are still well-suited for the EEA.

THE "BIG BANG FOR HUMANITY"

About 10,000 years ago, though, our ancestors initiated an agricultural revolution in which they began to farm and permanently settle land as well as domesticate animals. This “Big Bang for humanity” resulted in crucial changes to the physical and social environments our predecessors faced. For instance, family and community groups increased in size as food became more available, and excess food production promoted the emergence of trade.   

Sometimes these changes were adaptive (i.e., promoted survival and reproduction), as in larger families and expanding populations, and sometimes they weren’t. Sticking with the food example, despite the abundance and variety of foods today, we humans show a preference for sweet and fatty foods. In current times these are often unhealthy, but long ago they promoted survival among our ancestors when food was hard to come by and when consuming high-calorie foods made it more likely an individual would have the energy to survive to the next meal.   

SOME IMPORTANT PROBLEMS

What are some of the evolutionary mismatches that create problems for modern humans? First and foremost is “a crazy little thing called love.” Monogamy, homosexuality, parenting, and, yes, internet porn. Other mismatches involve work-life imbalance (our ancestors did not have to work day and night to survive), climate change, and virtual reality.

Caveman politicos, though, may be particularly interested in mismatches regarding leadership and war.

Leaders

Giphart and van Vugt starkly report that “those in prehistory who followed the wrong leader with the wrong characteristics simply did not leave any offspring” (p. 167). The “right” leader in prehistory knew that decisions had life and death consequences, built trust in followers using face-to-face interactions, and was obliged to quell violence inside and outside the group, often relying on physical prowess.

And the vestigial lessons internalized from prehistoric leaders dredge up the modern use of obsolete cues to leader quality such as a preference for physically formidable (e.g., taller and heavier) leaders who could, if necessary, stanch violence with violence. Of course, this is the mismatch: modern leadership is not death-defying, personal, or physically demanding. It’s farcical to imagine Donald Trump, Barack Obama, or any of their immediate predecessors, or even not-so-immediate predecessors, personally leading forces onto an exploding battlefield in Syria or stepping in between clashing rioters in Portland.

Battle of Spottsylvania by Thure de Thulstrup (1887).

Source: Public domain: US Library of Congress, digital ID pga.04038.

War

Warfare presents another mismatch. In ancestral times, warfare primarily consisted of close-up, small-scale raids and ambushes. By some accounts, warriors were motivated by the pursuit of greater social status and more sexual partners. The sticky lessons internalized were victorious warriors gained more group friendships and exchange partners and, indeed, access to a larger pool of available female partners in newly acquired territory. And success on the battlefield sent a signal to potential sexual partners of physical prowess and desirable genes that could be passed on to offspring.

The mismatch in this case is that in the modern context male-dominated violent conflict fails to take advantage of the full population of potential warfighters by mostly excluding female fighters. And it results in increasing lethality. Wars fought at a technologically safe distance leave combatants less exposed to the brutal nature of their actions and, as a result, less able to empathize with the suffering their enemies experience on the battlefield.   

HOW ABOUT YOU?

People vary in the amount of mismatch they experience. Want to know how well you navigate this digital world with your Stone Age brain? To find out, take the "The Mismatch Test," a non-scientific but fun quiz from Mismatch. (Shhhh...I scored 17.) 

Take "The Mismatch Test" Here

And if you want to learn more about evolutionary mismatch, check out Giphart and van Vugt’s entertaining and informative book.

Source: fscren/Flickr

The Ape That Understood the Universe by Steve Stewart-Williams is a fantastic book about the evolution of human psychology and culture. It is packed with seriously interesting information from evolutionary psychology and memetics.

Here are 5 ideas from the book:

1. Proximate versus ultimate causes of human behavior. Why do people have sex? One reason is because it feels good. Another is that it leads to children. The pleasure of sex is the proximate cause, the immediate driver of the behavior. Sex typically isn’t motivated by a desire to reproduce, it’s more often motivated by a pursuit of pleasure. But why did we evolve to find sex pleasurable? Because it leads to children. Having kids is the ultimate cause for why we have sex. As Stewart-Williams puts it, “When evolutionary psychologists argue sex is about making babies, they’re talking about the evolutionary function of the behavior, not what people want.” In fact, many things we find pleasurable arose because they had some payoff in our evolutionary past.

2. Evolutionary science helps the medical field. The book explains why modern women have higher rates of breast cancer. For most of human history, women spent a large portion of their reproductive years either pregnant or breastfeeding. This meant that they didn’t menstruate as often as today. In hunter-gatherer conditions, a woman would have about 100 menstrual cycles in her lifetime. In the modern world, women reach puberty at earlier ages, have fewer pregnancies, and spend less time nursing. Today, women have as many as 400 menstrual cycles. This exposes them to higher levels of ovarian hormones and fluctuations, which increases odds of breast cancer.

3. Love might be mismatched for the modern world. For most of human history, people lived in small-scale communities of around 150 people. Mating opportunities were limited. Thus, if a person entered a relationship, they formed a deep bond with the other person, in part because there weren’t many options. In the modern world, we still experience such bonds. Even though we live in urban areas full of potential partners and can even open an app to meet someone new, we still care deeply about our mating partners and experience pain upon losing them. From the book: “The excessive tenacity of love may, in other words, be a result of evolutionary mismatch.”

4. Male and female sexual strategies. Sex is enjoyable for men and women. In our evolutionary past, though, sex posed far higher risks for women compared to men. One reason is because women could get pregnant, which was often hazardous in small-scale societies. As a result, women are more selective about who they enter romantic relationships with. Even with modern birth control technology, women are still choosier, in part because although the environment has changed, aspects of our evolved psychology have not. The book describes a study in which an attractive young man approached women and ask if they’d like to go back to his apartment. 6% said yes. In a different version of the study, an attractive woman approached men and asked if they’d like to go back to her apartment. 69% of men said yes. Stewart-Williams suggests another way to look at differences is to consider how men and women approach sex in situations with few constraints. In one study, researchers found that in San Francisco in the 1970s, 75% of gay men reported having had more than 100 sexual partners, while 2% of lesbian reported more than 100 sexual partners.

5. The selfish meme. This might be the weirdest part of the book, and perhaps the most interesting. Memes are “units of culture: ideas, beliefs, practices, and anything else that can be passed on via social learning.” Memes are analogous to genes. Just as some genes are more likely to survive and replicate, the same holds true for memes. Some ideas and practices are more useful than others, and are thus more likely to survive. But here’s the weird part: the determining factor for whether a meme will be passed on is whether survival benefits the meme itself, not the person using it. Just as genes don’t “care” about the survival of an organism but rather the survival of itself, memes don’t “care” about the survival of the meme-holder, but simply its own survival. Memes are not conscious, any more than genes are conscious. They simply act in a way to maximize their own survival. Some memes go extinct and others proliferate. It is true that some memes help us (moral norms, for example). But other memes can actually be evolutionarily detrimental (similarly, some gene variants can benefit us while others can put our health at risk).

The book offers different religious denominations as an example. Some religions promote fertility, urging their meme-holders to have lots of kids. The meme-holders then inculcate their kids with the memes, which benefit the meme’s survival. Other religions enforce abstinence. For instance, the Shakers was an eighteenth century American sect that insisted on strict celibacy. Over time, the Shakers became extinct. Stewart-Williams describes Shakerism as a “sterilizing parasite.” Beyond Shakerism, it may be possible that other memes urging people to not have children or have more children are similar. And over time, such memes have have the same sterilizing or procreative effect.

The book has so much more. I highly recommend The Ape That Understood The Universe by Steve Stewart-Williams. He also has a terrific Twitter page @SteveStuWill, full of interesting psychology facts and findings.
 

Divorce is destabilizing and daunting, to say the least. Part of what makes is so challenging is that, much like what happens during a tornado or an earthquake, your world falls apart around you. When it's happening, you have no idea where you’ll land when the tremors or winds stop. 

Once you emerge after the chaos, you have to try to make sense of what happened. Simultaneously, you also have to contend with figuring out your future.

It can feel overwhelming and most people don't even know where to even begin the process of getting the help they need.

Unfortunately, as common as divorce is, there is no one obvious path through or roadmap because each couple has their own personal circumstances to contend with. Some folks will have to focus on finding a new home, some on handling money matters, and others on making sure the kids are okay. Some will come to divorce after suffering for years; some will break up suddenly.

That said, with the exception of a very few people, everyone will have to hire some type of professional to help them through the process. Given that I've watched people struggle with this aspect (and far too often, hire the wrong professionals), I’ve created a very basic guide to help you find the right person for your situation. I will focus on the three main areas of need: legal, financial and emotional. 

LEGAL DIVORCE PROFESSIONALS: 

Finding a divorce attorney is easy. Finding the right attorney is the trick.

If you do a Google or Yahoo search for "family lawyer" and your geographic area, you will likely see that there's no shortage of them (unless you live in a remote area). Picking an attorney from the many names can feel like throwing a dart and seeing where it lands. It might occur to you that going with a complete unknown for something as impactful as a divorce makes no sense. Your next thought might be, "Why not call  _____________ (neighbor, cousin, sister or best-friend) who got divorced last year and ask for their attorney's name and number?"

Although this feels like it makes sense in that using someone "known" (only because someone you know knows him or her), this is the wrong thing you can do, (and truthfully, not all that different from picking someone out of an internet search).

Here's why: If you begin by looking for the attorney first, you will end up with the modality your attorney practices, and it's possible that his or her modality won't be right for your case.

A few years ago, a colleague of mine going through divorce hired an attorney who, it turned out, was known as one of the toughest litigators in the county. When her husband heard who would be representing her, he went out and hired another aggressive attorney. As a result, their case was much more contentious (and expensive) than it needed to be given that they weren't arguing over much and had no children together.

You can certainly ask others whom they hired and if they were happy with their choice, but you need to ask more questions than that, such as "What were the core issues of your case?""How knowledgeable was your attorney about finances or dealing with one of you being a solopreneur," for example. Also, how was your attorney to work with? Did they call you back right away, did they have an even temper, were they aggressive or reserved?

Where to Start in Choosing an Attorney

The place to start is to spend some time researching the various ways you can get divorced, decide which model is best for you and then find an attorney who practices the model you choose.

Modalities include:  self-representation, mediation, integrative mediation*, collaborative and litigation.

More things to consider: What does the attorney say they specialize in? What kind of temperament do they have (and does this bring out the best in me AND my spouse)? What is their reputation like (you can sometimes find reviews online)?

If my colleague had asked even a few of these questions, she undoubtedly would have made a different choice.

FINANCIAL DIVORCE PROFESSIONALS:

There are different types of financial professionals. When searching for the right one, there are some important things to keep in mind (please remember that these definitions are general and that specific terms for each of these areas may vary depending on where you live—that's part of why it can be confusing!). 

A Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is the person who advises you on tax matters and who can help you file your tax returns. 

A Financial Planner or Financial Advisor is someone who can help you invest in and maintain investments. This professional can help you project into the future and decide which investments make sense for you and your family.

A Financial Counselor or Money Coachis a professional who can help you manage your daily, monthly and annual household (or business budgets). This person is trained in the numbers but he or she is also quite adept at understanding the emotions behind money behaviors. A good Financial Counselor will gently help you create better spending habits and have a better relationship overall with money.

A Bookkeeper is the person who can keep track of your numbers for you. They may simply track your income and outflow but they may also cut paychecks for people and help you manage paying bills.

A Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA) is someone who guides you through the divorce process. He or she can help you make sense of your current financials. They can also create projections of monetary scenarios so that you understand what you’ll need through the divorce process in order to land on your feet financially.

A Forensic Accountant is the man or woman you hire in a divorce when you can’t make sense of past spending, when you fear there is money unaccounted for, when you don’t trust your spouse is being honest, or when you are seeking reimbursement for money that has been comingled but is traceable.

You will more than likely need more than one kind of professional and often your attorney can help you figure out which financial professional to retain.

MENTAL HEALTH DIVORCE PROFESSIONALS:

As with attorneys, I don’t recommend that you rely on a friend’s recommendation alone when seeking out a mental health professional to help you through your divorce.

Unfortunately, there is a paucity of information for therapists on divorce (this makes no sense to me because divorce is such a common event that is often one of the most destabilizing—but I’ll save the soapbox!). What this means for you, the consumer, is that if you go to just any therapist, you run the risk of finding someone who has a bias against divorce, or who doesn't know how to help you. 

I can’t tell you how many people have told me they have been shamed by their therapist who told them they didn’t try hard enough to make the marriage work, for example, or who tries to keep a couple together when they are clear they want to go their separate ways.

Perhaps not quite as damaging as a shamer is the therapist who knows absolutely nothing about divorce. While they may not tell you that you are doing something wrong, they may not help you as much as they could.

A knowledgeable therapist will not only listen to your heartache, fear, anger, etc., he or she will help guide you through the process by providing you with information and resources.  If you have a therapist you like but who knows little about divorce, there are courses for professionals* they can take to become more knowledgeable.

A therapist specializing in divorce may even have support groups to offer. A group can be invaluable in knowing you are not alone (at a time when you may feel pushed out and marginalized by friends in particular and society in general) and creating a new support network.

How Many Professionals Do I Need?

In a typical divorce, most people will use two or three different professionals. I tell people they will most likely need a team. This can get expensive and may not be practical for everyone, but it is ideal. 

Check your local resources for low fee legal and financial services as well as mental health agencies offering sliding scale. The trick is to get the RIGHT professional, not the least expensive whenever possible. The reason being, you may end up spending more (or leaving assets on the table therefore losing money) if you don't have knowledgeable, competent professionals.

Conclusion

Divorce professionals in general may not be hard to find, but the right professionals for your case may be. Research which divorce modality you want to use first, hire professionals second.

Don't be afraid to interview each professional and ask him or her pointed questions about how they would handle your case. Make sure they are knowledgeable and a good fit personality-wise. Remember that these people work for you so if you need something from them, let them know. If something's not working with them, let them go.

* For information on divorce courses for therapists, contact R. Cassidy Seminars. I can also help you find some resources for therapists so visit my bio for contact info.

Humanity is facing unprecedented planetary disruption not only from global warming but the devastation of natural ecologies and extensive pollution. It is easy to feel that this is inevitable, collateral damage from “progress.” But this damage is largely recent in the history of humanity (a few hundred years), accelerated in the last 50 years.

Our demise and that of planetary wellbeing is not inevitable. There are many societies that lived sustainably for thousands and even tens of thousands of years. What do they know that we can learn from? 

What accounts for the differences between dominant global modern culture and the cultures of successful, sustainable indigenous communities that existed for tens of thousands of years and that are still represented today in many first nations around the world?

First, there appear to be contrary worldviews. An ancient worldview considers the cosmos to be “unified, sacred and moral.” Communities who live with this worldview are connected to the lifeways of a particular landscape, promoting flourishing of the local biocommunity, with human beings one among many members. All human actions are considered integral to the wellbeing of the biocommunity and so must be thoughtful and respectful of the other-than-human. The other, more recent, worldview considers the cosmos “fragmented, disenchanted, amoral” (Four Arrows & Narvaez, 2016; Redfield, 1953). Modern civilization has become infused with this worldview, which focuses on preventing bad outcomes (for humans) through promoting accumulation (hoarding, then consumerism), using coercion to enforce norms of hierarchy and obedience to the system; at the same time, its efforts intentionally work against nature and focus on human aggrandizement (Mumford, 1967; Christen, Narvaez & Gutzwiller, 2017).  The goal became to ensure that, no matter the cost, the human group would survive. Often this entails exterminating anything in the way of human dominance and control—presumed necessary to avoid human suffering and death.

Second, embedded in this recent worldview, is a sense of separation from and superiority to Nature, a view that reaches all the way back to the origins of mono-agricultural civilizations. This harmful cocktail of separation and superiority intensified in recent centuries. In fact, Western scholarship was founded on assumptions about human separation from and superiority to Nature, easily casting off the wellbeing and even continuing existence of other life forms as unimportant or collateral damage to humanity’s goals. "Personhood" was removed from all but humans, and nature became a commodity for human interests (Merchant, 1980). The pursuit of wealth as an end in itself has resulted in unsustainable ways of living, contrasting with non-civilized cultures that thrived for thousands if not tens of thousands of years before being displaced. 

Third, from their beginnings in the 16th century, Western science, technology, and economics have grown as outlooks based on extreme abstraction (Latour, 2013). These fields advocate systematic detachment from the earth, thereby breaking the bonds of relational responsibility to other-than-humans who were studied as objects. On the other hand, detachment from relational commitment to the wellbeing of the natural world has led to sophisticated technologies, some helpful and some destructive. Detached science and technology, in part because of their philosophy of separation and control, have led to great physical comforts—but only for a minority of humans, and often with catastrophic hidden costs.

Fourth, perhaps most tragically, Western expansionism and global control of most areas of the earth have impaired capacities to perceive alternatives to the current pathway of increased control and extermination of nature. As Thomas Berry has pointed out, humans continue to be enchanted with technology despite the fact that the “wonderworld” promised has led instead to a waste world (Berry, 1990, 1999). Cultures that do not conform have been forced into submission to the dominant system. Landscapes are degraded and species lost for the sake of “progress.” Globalized culture often seems unable to perceive an alternative to the current pathway of increased control and domination of nature and destruction of cultures that do not conform to the dominant format.

When considered from the perspective of the history of human cultures, predominant Western beliefs of individualism, human superiority and separation from nature, and their resulting practices, are odd, rare and even aberrant (Sahlins, 2008). Most societies in the history of the world would consider individual “self-interest”—assumed normal human nature in most of the West—to be profoundly destructive and even a sign of insanity.

Indigenous World View

Non-industrialized, first-nation, indigenous societies around the world support the ancient worldview, an “indigenous” worldview that can provide a portal to global flourishing (Christen, Narvaez & Gutzwiller, 2017). An emphasis on “global flourishing,” in contrast to “economic globalization,” provides an alternative pathway from the fatalistic pathway of the dominant worldview. The goal is to promote a flourishing life through following nature’s gift economy (constant sharing, giving and taking among entities), being receptive to the natural flow of events, working with nature respectfully to promote diversity, including valuing human life as inseparable from the lives of other members of the bio-community. First-nation societies “feel themselves to be guests not masters” (F. Shepard, 1998; P. Shepard, 1998). They display a whole different awareness of humanity’s place: walking with the earth, not simply on it, and walking within its relational grasp (Ingold, 2005). Accordingly, the view includes a sense that spirit pervades all things, that All are related and indeed, that humans are younger siblings who have much to learn from creatures who have resided on this planet far longer. This worldview is accompanied by a sense of place on the earth, by a feeling of being at home, and practices of fitting in with the local landscape and biocommunity.

Many first-nations peoples of the earth have lived well and kindly with the earth for generations. Many first nations peoples around the world come from cultures that lived sustainably and relatively peacefully for tens of thousands of years (Fry, 2006). Their companionship orientation—from raising children, to living with humans and nonhumans—fosters enduring wisdom, morality and flourishing (Cooper, 1998; Deloria, 2006). These societies are continuous with 99% of the history of the genus Homo and provide evidence for humanity’s sustainable relationship with the rest of Nature. Thus, we may regard the indigenous worldview and lifestyle as a baseline for humanity living well on the earth and an alternative pathway for human futures.

NOTE: This was excerpted from the 2019 book, Indigenous Sustainable Wisdom: Integrating First Nation Know-How for Global Flourishing.

NEXT POST ON SUSTAINABLE WISDOM:

Learning to Stop Thinking and Start Being

REFERENCES

Berry, Thomas The Dream of the Earth, Paperback ed. (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1990).

Berry, Thomas The Great Work: Our Way into the Future (New York: Bell Tower, 1999).

Christen, Markus, Narvaez, Darcia, & Gutzwiller, Eveline (2017). Comparing and integrating biological and cultural moral progress. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 20: 55. doi:10.1007/s10677-016-9773-y

Cooper, Thomas W. (1998). A Time before Deception: Truth in Communication, Culture, and Ethics.

Deloria, Vine, The World We Used to Live In: Remembering the Powers of the Medicine Men (Golden, CO: Fulcrum, 2006).

Four Arrows and Darcia Narvaez, "Reclaiming Our Indigenous Worldview," in Working for Social Justice inside and Outside the Classroom: A Community of Students, Teachers, Researchers, and Activists, ed. Nancye E. McCrary and E. Wayne Ross (New York: Peter Lang, 2016).

Four Arrows, Point of Departure: Returning to Our More Authentic, Worldview for Education and Survival (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2016);

Fry, Douglas P., The Human Potential for Peace: An Anthropological Challenge to Assumptions About War and Violence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

Ingold, Tim “On the Social Relations of the Hunter-Gatherer Band,” in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers, ed. Richard Lee and Richard Daly (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

Latour, Bruno An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013).

Merchant, Carolyn The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution, 1st ed. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980).

Mumford, Lewis The Myth of the Machine, 1st ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967).

Redfield, Robert The Primitive World and its Transformations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1953).

Sahlins, Marshall, The Western Illusion of Human Nature: With Reflections on the Long History of Hierarchy, Equality and the Sublimation of Anarchy in the West, and Comparative Notes on Other Conceptions of the Human Condition (Chicago: Prickly Pear Paradigm Press, 2008).

Shepard, Paul Coming Home to the Pleistocene, ed. Florence R. Shepard (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1998).

Shepard, Paul, Nature and Madness, ed. C. L. Rawlins (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, [1982] 1998).

Good sleep is an elusive luxury. After a stressful day it can take forever to get to sleep.  The severity of insomnia typically worsens as we age.  Every year after puberty it becomes more difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep.  Insomnia leaves us feeling dissatisfied with our sleep and facing the new day with fatigue, low energy, difficulty concentrating, generalized anxiety and decreased performance in work or at school. There are many causes for insomnia, including changes in our sleeping environment, shift work, clinical disorders such as depression or mania and most medications.  Over-the-counter and prescriptions medications are common solutions for the complex causes of insomnia.  

Unfortunately, the treatment options currently available do not help most people who suffer from insomnia.  A drug that can produce a normal sleep pattern does not currently exist.  Worse, our current medications show tolerance with repeated use that requires us to take higher and higher doses. Ultimately, when we finally stop taking them, we suffer with unpleasant withdrawal symptoms, primarily severe insomnia.  The insomnia is made worse by the terrible nightmares that occur during the first few nights of sleep after stopping many of the most popular prescription medications.

The internet offers many claims that marijuana, or one of its components, such as THC or CBD, can treat insomnia and provide a night of restful sleep. Is this true?  This is what we know from the relatively few well-controlled studies that have been performed.  

Medical marijuana is as safe as the standard OTC and prescription medications currently available. However, medical marijuana shares many of the same problems associated with standard OTC and prescription medications. The use of medical marijuana does not improve sleep quality or reduce the severity of insomnia.  Marijuana dose-dependently produces poor sleep quality. The reason that marijuana does not improve sleep quality is related to the fact that the endogenous cannabinoid neurotransmitter system in our brain is not directly involved in the onset or maintenance of normal sleep cycles. Therefore, marijuana cannot, and does not, produce normal sleep patterns.  Marijuana increases the lighter stages of sleep, known as NREM slow wave sleep; consequently, it decreases the amount of time spent in REM sleep. REM sleep is usually called dream sleep.  Not getting enough REM sleep has many bad consequences, such as an increased risk for obesity, significant memory problems and mood disorders. Getting adequate REM sleep is critical for people with bipolar disorder.  Depressed patients who used cannabis reported significantly more sleep impairments.  Using marijuana to help fall asleep was also associated with frequent night-time awakenings.

Marijuana might be useful for people who suffer with chronic pain disorders. One study found a marked improvement in subjective sleep parameters provided by the patients with a wide variety of pain conditions including multiple sclerosis, peripheral neuropathic pain, intractable cancer pain and rheumatoid arthritis. Chronic pain, neurological illness, and sleep disorders are clearly comorbid conditions with insomnia. Marijuana likely improves sleep via its ability to reduce pain symptoms.

Cannabidiol (CBD), a constituent of marijuana, was much worse than marijuana. CBD disrupted sleep patterns by reducing both NREM sleep and REM sleep. CBD alone is useless for insomnia. 

Similar to currently available medications, nightly use of marijuana produces tolerance that requires higher and higher doses.  Withdrawal from marijuana use is associated with poor sleep quality and insomnia.  Thus, overall, the available evidence shows that medical marijuana is not superior to currently available medications. The use of marijuana for the treatment of insomnia is associated with side-effects that are similar to those associated with standard insomnia therapies.  Overall, the use of medical marijuana for insomnia should be limited to only occasional use in order to avoid the development of tolerance, rebound insomnia and the negative consequences of long-term REM sleep suppression upon daytime cognitive functioning.

© Gary L. Wenk, Ph.D. is the author of Your Brain on Food, (3rd Edition, 2019; Oxford University Press). Dr. Wenk conducts pre-clinical studies on medical marijuana.

Mushing circa 1954

Source: By WayneRay - self-made Peckham family album Windfield Photographic Archives, Public Domain

It is an article of faith that emergent dogs made themselves invaluable to Paleolithic hunters and gatherers as hunters, guards, beasts of burden, and companions, a subset of which must be fellow travelers and which is different than serving as transport. I don’t have statistics to prove it but most dogs in my experience seem always ready to go walkabout—have an adventure even if they don’t like their ultimate destination.  For that reason, I have posited that dogs emerged on the trail while travelling with their human or hominid  friends--and  it turns out that I might not have been far off. A few recent events have raised again this  question of why dogs run—or walk—with a human or company of humans they have decided to join but perhaps just as often by themselves. What inspires those long-distance solo travelers?  Is it, as the old song about a bear and a mountain suggests, to see what they can see? Or is it, as hard-headed pragmatists might argue, to find a mate?  I consulted my friend Marc Bekoff, the world renowned ethologist, author of over 30 books, keeper of the Psychology Today blog, Animal Emotions, and co-author with Jessica Pierce of two books, most recently, Unleashing Your Dog: A Field Guide to Giving Your Canine Companion the Best Life Possible (which emphasizes the importance of letting dogs move free of restraint as much as possible, so they can savor the world at their leisure through their senses, especially that of smell).  Marc, who has devoted his life to studying canids admitted he had no ready explanation. He said that some dogs in good health seemed to run and run and run for no apparent reason while others would  simply quit for no discernable reason.

I’ve often pondered this question without result and then laid it in a pile with other inchoate musings until some event caused me to excavate it—in this case the refusal by a team of Alaskan huskies in March 2019 to continue a race they were leading by 5 hours, with 80 percent complete. According to the mythology surrounding them, these dogs were created to run pulling a sled for more than 1,000 miles across Alaska.  They love to run, we are told.  Why, then, did they quit? Did they tire of being treated like machines (as if they had any notion of what that meant)?  Could there be a substantial difference in their minds between running as a grinding job and running because that’s what they love to do?  If so, what does this event tell us about how and why dogwolves and humans got together? (In my lexicon dogwolves are doglike wolves; wolfdogs are wolflike dogs.)

Since its inaugural running in 1973, the Iditarod Trail sled dog race has billed itself as “the world’s last great race,” a  celebration of dogs always eager to run fast while dragging a packed sled and its human driver across the sparsely populated interior of Alaska.  It is, say organizers and participants alike, “All about the dogs.”  For some, having an adventure with dogs across the vast empty that is Alaska, the dogs are clearly the focus. But for others, winning comes first. Placing out of the money is tantamount to failure—even with deep-pocket sponsors: Maintaining a dog yard is an expensive proposition.

The Iditarod commemorates a 678-mile sled-dog relay bridging 5 days in January and February 1925 from Nenana, near Fairbanks, to Nome, at the time a mining town of 10,000 on the southern coast of the Seward peninsula.  The relay was staged for a compelling reason: to deliver several thousand glass vials of serum needed to prevent a deadly diphtheria epidemic. Much of the nation followed this event by telegraphed reports on the progress of a group of 20 native and Anglo-European mushers, organized by Leonhard Seppala. But it was Gunnar Kassen who succeeded in bringing the serum into Nome on February 2 behind Seppala’s second-string dog team. The lead dog on that team, Balto, became world famous.  Indeed, a statue was erected to him in New York’s Central Park. Although Seppala’s lead dog Togo lost the canine fame derby to Balto, Seppala was widely celebrated for his heroic mushing in the serum run.  Writing in the February 8, 1925, New York Times,  Arthur Shield tweaked the “apostles of racial purity” [then, as now resurgent] by observing that Seppala’s Siberian huskies were better bred than he, who was a mix of all Nordic types—“the Finn, the Swede, and the Norwegian.” 

As it happened, on the way back to their remote cabin, Seppala’s great lead dog, Togo, decided to take a detour.  With two teammates he had freed from the gangline, he went caribou hunting and according to legend, the three ate their fill before returning home.

Since 1980, Alaska Airlines has sponsored the Leonhard Seppala Award for Humanitarian Treatment of Dogs, awarded by vote of race vets to the musher who takes the best care of their dogs. Seppala was the North American sled dog champion, known for never taking a whip or club—two popular and brutal dog training methods to his dogs. All mushers would do well to emulate him. Champion sled dogs now, whether for short, intermediate, or long distance, are  purpose-bred mutts.  Mushing dogs today constitute a mix of different breeds that varies from kennel to kennel but often has at base some Siberian husky or  native huskies of the indigenous Alaskans, who were the better dogs.  Once Anglo-European mushers began to race with native huskies, they started adding breeds: German shorthaired pointers, Irish setters and Targhee hounds, a type of staghound, popular in the Mountain States in the opening decades of the 20th century have gone into dogs of different mushers, as have the occasional wolf  and coyote. The results are Alaskan huskies bred for speed, stamina, and strength, as well as prick ears and a double coat to provide protection from bitter cold that can drop the temperature  down to well below freezing.  Over the past 25 years, as speeds and, more recently, temperatures have increased, the dogs have become distinctly more houndlike in appearance, with shorter coats, occasional flop ears and longer legs. These “houndy” huskies are fast, but some of them might not be up to the challenges of recent years, especially choppy trails, open water, and rain where there should be snow.

The Iditarod claims to be all about dogs, but over the years, it has often  balked at making changes to improve the lot of its canine competitors, in part because race organizers do not want to appear to bow to critics, many of whom live outside the state.  But, however reluctantly, they have mandated changes in the way dogs live, work, and are transported—and it deploys a group of race veterinarians who monitor the health of every dog at every check point.  In the case of a dog's death, race officials investigate  promptly and remove the musher from the race if they are found responsible. 

Despite those efforts, dogs die in the Iditarod as they have from its inception. They have been trampled by moose,  rammed by snow machine, drowned.  The most recent death, in this year's race, was attributed to pneumonia. The deaths have led to charges by various animal rights groups that the Iditarod kills dogs and must therefore be stopped.  I discussed this issue in a previous posting to this blog, in which I argue that the race should be reformed or consigned  to the dust bin of history. The race is becoming a flat out charge across the state and that is forcing anyone with a thought of high placement to take unnecessary risks to push themselves and their dogs beyond exhaustion—and that doesn’t begin to address the issue of drug use, the culling of unwanted puppies, and the physical and mental abuse in dog yards. Many people argue that dog yards are inherently abusive.

I well remember my surprise when I checked the 2019 race  standings the morning  of March 8 and saw that Nicolas Petit, a French musher living in Alaska, was leading by more than 5 hours with 200 miles left to go—a huge margin.  He’s going too fast, I thought, something’s got to give.  Petit would not extend his lead.  He would not even stay in the race as ten dogs, bred, born, raised, and trained to run fast and pull hard decided they had had enough. It is not uncommon for a team to strike—some very fine mushers have taken unscheduled breaks and even had to leave the race.  But seldom is the rebellion so public, so embarrassing so  humiliating.  Petit said  a young dog on his team was trying to make a pit stop when an older dog jumped on him.   Petit said he yelled at the dogs to break them up, “Which is not done,” he admitted.  He added that the entire team became so freaked out that they refused to proceed.

That must have been a hell of a yell—more like an enraged bellow from someone whose anger you don’t want to rouse.  It is hard to see how a person not prone to screaming at their  dogs would suddenly start, especially with such a commanding lead. More likely you would want to keep things calm and quiet, maintain your routine.  Huskies relieve themselves while running in the gangline and will show a bit of impatience.  It appears that whatever happened wasn’t so egregious that it required a verbal correction with enough anger to drive the team to quit. Veteran Alaska sports writer Craig Medred reported at the time that Petit’s team had also quit on him in 2014 because he pushed them too hard.

It  appears to me that in 2019, musher and dogs were exhausted, stretched to their limit. Petit’s fit of temper must  have sent them over the line, and their strike must have sent him to a horrible, dark spot as he tried to get them moving.  He was parked by the trail, he said, hoping something would reignite their passion.  But the bond between human  and dogs was frayed nearly to breaking, if it weren’t already broken. Finally a snowmobile came and dragged them on a sled back to the last checkpoint they had passed. Petit soon withdrew from the race for the “mental well being” of his team, the Iditarod trail committee said.  That sounds like a team in meltdown.  Before Petit attempts the Iditarod again, perhaps he might learn to manage his race better, so he doesn’t once more burn his team out  short of the finish line Nome.

About the time Petit was driving his team to mental collapse, Seattle climbing guide, Don Wargowsky posted on his blog an account of how a free-ranging Nepalese village dog joined an expedition he was leading last November up Mera Peak and then up Baruntse, at  23,381 feet one of the highest in the Himalayas. The young dog, thought to be a cross between a Tibetan mastiff and Himalayan sheepdog, took up with the group after its summit of Mera—Wargowsky named her in the mountain’s honor—and stuck with the group for three and a half weeks, navigating the few difficult stretches largely without assistance—Wargowsky once prevented her from falling 600 feet, and he and a sherpa taught her the basics of fixed ropes.  Wargowsky shared his meals and tent with her.   Although it is apparently not uncommon to see dogs in Himalayan base camps, Baruntse is believed then and now to be the highest a dog has climbed.  By the end of the climb,  Mera had won the hearts of everyone, Wargowsky reported  including the Sherpas, at least one of whom declared her a magical being. No one forced this dog to climb that mountain; in fact, she, whose name is now Baru, chose her companions.  On the basis of what, I wonder, since we are told she ran past groups of climbers willing to give her food and attention.  What she really seemed to want was to go trekking with Wargowsky and his group. The expedition’s chief Sherpa has since taken her to his home.

My favorite story in this genre of dog adventurers involves an Ecuadorian street dog and a four-person Swedish team competing in the 2014 Adventure Racing World Championship, which requires the mastery of such sports as kayaking, hiking, trekking, and mountain biking. It is  a dangerous, rugged, and brutal competition in which a team is only as strong as its weakest member because all must finish together; the winners have the fastest time through the course.  It’s the sort of competition that should appeal to a hard driving, sleep-deprived Iditarod musher.

The Ecuador route was 700 kilometers, and the Swedes already an hour behind the leaders with about 160 kilometers  to go when they stopped at. a changing area  for ­­­trekking gear and food. There they noticed a mangy street dog with an open sore on his back and “filthy, knotted  hair.”  One of the team, Karen Lundgren commented that you did not want to touch him—he was that scuzzy. But the team saw the dog was in a sorry state and so team organizer and captain Mikael Lindnord gave him one of the canned meatballs he had just opened for himself.  That was a fateful act of altruism. The team tried to get the dog to stay at the staging area, but he would have none of it.  He freed himself from restraint and followed them until they realized that he wasn’t going away, and they didn’t want him to get injured or lost while following them.  And so they named him Arthur and the five of them became media sensations, as they shared the food and helped Arthur when needed.  As the team prepared for the final  paddle through mangroves and rapids, race marshals told the Swedes that it would be too risky for them to take Arthur, but as soon as they pushed off, Arthur leapt into the water and swam as fast as he could to catch his friends.  Lindnord lifted him into the kayak, declaring that they couldn’t leave him. They knew by that time that they had  no chance of winning but they could continue to work to save Arthur, who had already crossed some very rugged terrain with them.  Knowing Arthur would die if left in Ecuador—where stay dogs were routinely killed, Lindnord arranged for him to go to Sweden where he arrived just in time to have his infected wounds treated.  After a 4 month quarantine, Arthur went home with Mikael and Helena where he appears to have settled right in. Lindnord tells their story in his book, Arthur: The Dog Who Crossed a Jungle and Found a Home. [link] It is worth noting that we are not talking about puppy love here.  Arthur was about 7 years old, and he had clearly been abused.  Lindnord had never had a dog, yet Arthur chose him and this teammates.  He gave him and them his love and trust, and they responded in kind.

I can’t hear these stories without recalling that adult wolves will form bonds of friendship with a person they choose, and it appears that dogs retain that ability, even if they seem more giving of their affection and, thus, more unforgiving of those who betray that trust.  The answer to my first question might be nothing more difficult than dogs run because they were born to run. They are built for and wired for the chase, unless they are distorted by human breeders.  Why they run with some people and not with others is more complicated but must involve the ability to read another being’s intentionality and then to trust and if necessary act upon that judgment. All of that—essentially over-riding the fight or flight response to someone or something different—must sometimes be done in an instant, and it appears not all animals are equal in their ability to do that.  Clearly we humans have some catching up to do in that regard.  We can only hope we have a dog to travel with us and teach us the way.

When I discuss cognitive behaivoral treatment for insomnia (CBTi) with patients, naturally their first question is “What is that?” My first response and the most important thing I can tell them is that CBTi has been deemed as a first line treatment by the American College of Physicians due to clinical trials consistently showing it to be an effective treatment for insomnia. So what is it?

Typically the CBTi treatment starts with the patient meeting with a provider that is specifically trained in CBTi (usually a licensed psychologist). An initial intake is performed with the patient to understand what the specific insomnia problem is as it could be difficulty getting to sleep, difficulty staying asleep, and/or waking too early and unable to get back to sleep, and understanding how the patient is impacted by the sleep disruption (i.e., is work or school performance affected, are personal relationships suffering, etc). During the intake session the patient will receive a paper sleep log or be asked to track their sleep using similar means which could include an electronic app on their mobile device to bring to the next session. The information from the intake session along with the sleep log data are designed to taylor the specific recommendations discussed below.

Sleep restriction

The first recommended component is sleep restriction also termed sleep consolidation because this process consolidates sleep rather than restricts sleep. Sleep restriction involves assessing how much time the individual is spending in bed versus how much of that time they are sleeping. This is an estimate based on the data from the completed sleep log. The week average is assessed from the sleep log because there can be daily variation. Sleep restriction is a process of limiting time spent in the bed closer to the average time slept. For example, if an individual is in bed on an average of 8 hours but they are only sleeping 6 hours on average then sleep restriction involves shortening that time closer to the 6 hours. This works to metaphorically prime the sleep pump to get more consolidated sleep and then part of the process is expanding the sleep window to find the individual’s optimal window of time in bed. So, for the individual that was in bed for 8 hours and they shortened down to 6 hours for a week or two they may eventually start to expand the window based on how the sleep log numbers look and how they feel during the day. It is a systematic process which takes patience and time. Usually the time in bed window is opened back up slowly over time (week by week) so that the individual does not lose the benefit they have gained. This is a process that needs guidance as there are exceptions to implementation to take into consideration such as someone with bipolar disorder, seizure disorder or someone who is excessively sleepy during the day. It is worth noting that when sleep restriction is used in the clinical setting, rarely if ever is someone restricted to under 5 hours of time spent in bed even if they are reporting on their sleep log that they are getting less than 5 hours of sleep per day on average. The above information provides a high level explanation of the process keeping in mind that there are individualized factors that go into the actual implementation.

Stimulus control guidelines

There is another implementation that is part of the behavioral aspect of CBTi called stimulus control. The spirit of this recommendation is to reassociate the bed with sleep rather than the bed being paired with tossing and turning, frustration about not sleeping, and sleeplessness. The stimulus control recommendations include: (1) going to bed only when sleepy, (2) using the bed for sleep and sexual activity only, (3) leaving the bed if unable to fall asleep or if awake for a period of time in the middle of the night or early morning, (4) getting back into bed when sleepy, and (5) keeping a fixed wake time. These are all intended to help the bed to become a reassociated or strong cue (stimulus) for sleep.

Cognitive therapy

The C in CBTi refers to cognitive therapy which helps to reframe or challenge thoughts and beliefs that may be maintaining the insomnia. A vicious cycle can include an active mind, worrying and faulty attributions around sleep that increase the level of distress which leads to continued sleep disturbance. Decreasing sleep related anxiety can be accomplished by challenging dysfunctional thoughts associated with sleep. Thoughts are malleable and can be reshaped into more adaptive and realistic alternatives to help decrease the emotional distress around sleep.

Sleep hygiene

It is important to keep in mind that sleep hygiene recommendations are rarely effective for treating chronic insomnia. They are good to assess in the intake session to ensure they are not contributing factors in the overall picture. Sleep hygiene recommendations include ensuring decreased light in the bedroom when going to sleep, making sure the bedroom is at a comfortable temperature, avoiding heavy meals, exercise, alcohol, and nicotine close to bedtime, limiting caffeine in the afternoon, and avoiding naps.

Relaxation techniques

Additionally, relaxation techniques are beneficial in creating a sense of relaxation and helping the individual to be in a more restful state. There is evidence to support that relaxation techniques are helpful with getting to sleep. These practices need to be incorporated during the day at a time when the individual is not stressed in order to effectively learn how to use them and become proficient. The caveat to learning these techniques is not to use them to “get to sleep” as trying to sleep activates a fight or flight response and can backfire and become frustrating. Different relaxation techniques include progressive muscle relaxation, tensing and relaxing different muscle groups, deep breathing, and visualization of a relaxing scene or experience. Biofeedback is another technique to learn in modifying physiology as it involves looking at muscle tension, heart rate, respiratory rate, skin temperature and modifying it in real time to see what changes lead to the best relaxing outcome.

CBTi is a combination of behavioral changes, cognitive changes, and incorporation of relaxation techniques to set the sleep system up for success in promoting good sleep. CBTi can be done working with a trained provider in person or by telehealth (practitioners are able to see patients via telehealth in states where they are licensed), through self-application online CBTi formats, or self-application through bibliotherapy (using a book format). To locate a provider that is trained in CBTi visit https://my.absm.org/BSMSpecialists.aspx

The collective knowledge, skills, and abilities possessed by members of an organization is a resource called human capital. Importantly, human capital is a key driver of firm-level outcomes, such as sales, profits, and market share. To this end, organizations often strive to acquire additional human capital, either by “making” (via training) or “buying” (via recruitment and hiring) employee knowledge, skills, and abilities. However, a recently published study indicates that it’s not just the amount of human capital an organization has at its disposal that ultimately determines success, but also how the organization puts their human capital to use.

My colleagues Aaron Schmidt, Michael Natali, and I studied the success of National Hockey League (NHL) teams across five seasons. We found that long-term performance was largely driven by a team’s tendency to save their best players for situations in which these players would have the most impact. Specifically, teams that were more likely to put their top-paid players on the ice when the team was losing and keep these players on the bench when the team was ahead had higher season-level performance, compared to teams that did not adjust the playing time of top players in this manner.

Adjusting top-player time-on-ice to meet the demands of the situation resulted in higher season-level points.

Source: James Beck, Aaron Schmidt, and Michael Natali

Essentially, this comes down to allocating resources by need. Players’ energy is limited and valuable. NHL teams that use this resource strategically are more successful in the long run, relative to other teams.

However, it is important to note that by reserving top players for when they are most needed, NHL teams often subjected themselves to decreased performance in the short-term. Nonetheless, a willingness to take a short-term reduction in performance performed contributed to higher performance across the season as a whole.

This study has implications beyond the NHL, particularly for the way organizations manage their personnel. Just as NHL players get fatigued after a shift on the ice, workers in traditional occupations also get fatigued by their job demands, such as meeting tight deadlines and dealing with difficult customers. This study may be informative for managers, dispatchers, and anyone else responsible for assigning others to complete work tasks. It is probably not a great idea to assign your best performer to every problem. Instead, saving their energy for when it’s most needed is likely to pay off in the long run.

The full manuscript can be downloaded here.